
Pass T N4 1U 
Book,-— j>- 77 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



VOCAL EXPRESSION. 
Course II. 



WORKS OF S. S. CURRY, PhD. 



The Province of Expression. The General Prob- 
lem of Delivery and the Principles underlying the 
various Methods of Developing it. $2.00. 

Lessons in Vocal Expression. Eighty-six Definite 
Problems, three hundred short Selections, and Prac- 
tical Steps and Discussions. New edition. $1.25. 

Imagination and Dramatic Instinct. $1.50. 

Classics for Vocal Expression. New edition. 
$1.10 net. 

Elements of Vocal Training. In preparation. 

Foundations of Expression. In preparation. 



Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, to School 0/ Expression, 
458 Boylston Street. 



IMAGINATION 



AND 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT 

SOME PRACTICAL STEPS FOR THEIR 
DEVELOPMENT. 




By S. S. CURRY, Ph.D. 



Author of " The Province of Expression;'''' "Lessons in Vocal Expression ;" 

Dean of the School of Expression ; Instructor of Oratory in Yale Divinity 

School and Newton Theological Institution, and formerly in 

Boston University and Harvard University. 







BOSTON: 
SCHOOL OF EXPRESSION, 

458 Boylston Street. 



C77 



Copyright, 1896, 
By S. S. Curry. 



A II rights reserved. 



n-t/fw 



mnttaitg Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



PKEFACE. 



THIS book is a study of • vocal expression, as the direct 
revelation of the processes. of the mind in thinking 
and feeling ; and as the manifestation of the elliptic rela- 
tions of thought which words cannot symbolize, such as the 
convictions, the beliefs, the interest, and the purpose of the 
speaker. According to this view, vocal expression is a 
significant, not a symbolic language, and is more subjective, 
complex, and nearer to Nature than words, and hence cannot 
be developed in the same way as a symbolic or representa- 
tive language, nor be made subject to the same mechanical 
rules. 

The work is meant to furnish simple and practical 
suggestions. In nearly every case a poem or selection is 
placed before the mind of the student, and the remarks 
made are intended to aid in the study of the extract, 
and especially in its interpretation by the living voice. "To 
know a thing, we must do it " is a fundamental principle 
of education. The mind must be brought directly into 
contact with nature. Experiment is the true method of 
scientific study, but the principle applies even more to liter- 
ary or artistic work. The student must be set to doing, — 
explanation must be subordinate, and only for guidance in 
the discovery or study of the principles for himself in prac- 
tice. This book is an endeavor to furnish a practical means 
of studying and training the Imagination and Dramatic In- 
stinct. It aims to bring the mind of the student into 
direct contact with the noble works of Literature, not 



2 PREFACE. 

merely to analyze or to understand the- thought in such 
works, but to stimulate and awaken the faculties in the 
reader which are awake in the writer, to study the processes 
of the mind in creating and assimilating ideas for the true 
artistic interpretation of literature by the living voice. It 
furnishes a practical means of educating some important 
actions of the mind by the oldest of all artistic agents, 
the voice. 

In certain cases problems are definitely stated, but more 
frequently there are suggestions which can be formulated 
by the teacher, or by the student himself. All great artists 
sketch and make studies of the objects of nature. This is 
the true method of art study ; there is no substitute for it. 
Hence, the same method must be used by the student of 
literature, or of vocal expression. There must be long- 
continued study in the rendering of single lines or phrases. 
Such studies must be arranged for students according to 
their needs, and the student himself must direct his efforts 
to those points in which he is weakest. 

In using the book in class, my custom is to assign certain 
selections a week beforehand and have students study and 
read them alone ; then afterward with the teacher for sug- 
gestions and criticisms. The studies are to be read over to 
aid the student in comprehending criticisms and difficulties 
in the rendering of a poem, or to stimulate deeper studies 
or broader investigations. The student's understanding and 
assimilation of the principles involved are chiefly to be 
judged by his rendering of, a passage, or by his method of 
speaking. . Occasionally, questions should be asked to test 
the student's conception of the deeper meanings of a pas- 
sage of literature or the apprehension of its vocal interpre- 
tation or by his understanding of the steps which are being 
taken. My own aim is usually to keep many things before 
the student's mind, such as the essential nature of all ex- 



PREFACE. 3 

pression, of all artistic endeavor, the steps he is taking in 
vocal expression, the spirit of the literary work he is 
studying, or the speech he is trying to make, and also his 
own special needs or tendencies ; first one and then another 
of these is emphasized to stimulate his harmonious growth. 

This work is intended to follow " Lessons in Vocal Expres- 
sion. " That volume takes up the simpler processes of think- 
ing, the more elemental or logical relations of ideas, while 
this takes up the imaginative and sympathetic elements, 
the ideal and dramatic relations of ideas to feeling and 
experience. 

Practice in vocal expression should always be connected 
with vocal training. At every stage of his progress the 
teacher should give the student definite steps for the train- 
ing of his voice, using the same or different extracts. The 
student must realize the character of his tone, and the effect 
of his mind upon it. Do the qualities of his voice change 
with his ideas and feelings ? Does he feel his ideas, his im- 
aginative conceptions of relations and background, his deeper 
feelings in the tones and modulations of his voice ? 

. The book has grown from practical struggles in teaching 
for twenty years, from a realization of the importance of 
awakening the Imagination and Dramatic Instinct of col- 
lege, theological, or law students, and in fact of every man 
and woman of whatever aim in life. The volume is larger 
than it would otherwise have been on account of the neglect 
or misconceptions of many aspects of the subject at the 
present time. Many of the lessons may be easily extended 
or related to wider courses, the History of Humor, Forms of 
Poetry, History of Lyric Poetry, and many other subjects. 
In fact, the volume is intended as a companion to the stu- 
dent in the study of literature to throw light upon practi- 
cal vocal interpretation as one of the chief means to get at 
the spirit of literary work. 



4 PREFACE. 

No one realizes its inadequacy, its imperfections, more 
than the writer. It has been prepared in the midst of the 
continual and engrossing duties of practical teaching. It is 
hoped that, while it has the imperfections of the teacher, 
it will also have the spirit of practical teaching, and prove 
suggestive and helpful to a large number of students, and 
meet a great variety of needs. 

s. s. c. 

Boston, Massachusetts, 

September, 1896. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION 



PAGE 

7 



I. 

IMAGINATION, OR THE CEEATIVE INSTINCT. 

I. Conception and Imagination 23 

II. Imaginative Attention 29 

III. Imagination and Memory 36 

IV. Imagination and Science 43 

V. The Ideal and the Real 47 

VI. Imagination and Fancy 52 

VII. Actions of the Imagination 64 

VIII. Characteristics of the Imagination .... 74 

IX. Situation and Background 81 v 

X. Imagination and Feeling 89 

XI. Effect of Passion upon Imagination .... 101 v 

XII. Imagination and Figurative Language . . . 107 

XIII. Forms of Poetry 117 

XIV. Degrees of Imagination 126 

XV. Uses of Imagination 131 

XVI. Freedom of the Imagination 135 

XVII. Misconceptions and Abuses 144 

XVIII. Knowledge and Expression 149 

XIX. Development of Imagination 154 

XX. Vocal Manifestations of Imagination : Touch 161 
XXI. Vocal Manifestation of Imagination: Pause . 165 
XXII. Vocal Manifestation of Imagination : Tone- 
Color 167 

XXIII. Manifestation of Imagination: Change of 

Pitch 175 

XXIV. Intensity and Repose 177 

XXV. Suggestion 182 



CONTENTS. 



II. 



ASSIMILATION, OK THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

PAGE 

XXVI. Ideas and Experience 191 

XXVII. Identification 199 

XXVIII. Changes in Feeling ,203 

XXIX. Contrast 209 

XXX. Gradation 216 

XXXI. Imitation and Assimilation 220 

XXXII. Manifestation and Representation . . . 228 

XXXIII. Elements of Dramatic Instinct 234 

XXXIV. Point of View 243 

XXXV. Attitude of the Man 250 

XXXVI. Personation and Participation 260 

XXXVII. Assimilation and Quotation 268 

XXXVIII. Assimilation and Dialect 273 

XXXIX. Purposes in Expression 276 

XL. Forms of the Dramatic 283 

XLI. Monologues 293 

XLIL Means of Revealing Transitions .... 297 

XLIII. Movement . . v 304 

XLIV. The Development of Assimilation . . . . 312 

XLV. The Educational Value of Dialogues . . 315 

XLVI. Speaking and Acting 322 

XL VII. Modes of Histrionic Expression 326 

XL VIII. Assimilation and Humor 328 

XLIX. Assimilation and Languages 333 

L. Faults and Dangers in Dramatic Expres- 
sion 339 

LI. Emotional Truthfulness 343 

LIL Originality 350 

LIII. Unity 353 

INDEX 363 



INTRODUCTION. 



What is the imagination ? Is it of any use ? Can it be trained? 
Is it not a merely ornamental appendage to human nature, imprac- 
tical and untruthful 1 Unfortunately, such questions are common, 
and indicate widespread misconception of the faculty. 

The relation of education to imagination has hitherto received 
slight attention at the hands of educators in general. The de- 
velopment of the imagination has been given little or no place in 
the courses of study in our schools, nor has it been regarded as 
worthy of any distinctive attention in college training. "In the 
curriculums of most of our higher institutions of learning in 
America and England," says Professor Charles Eliot Norton, 
" no place is given to that instruction which has for its end the 
cultivation of the imagination and the sentiments, through the re- 
fining of the perceptions and the quickening of the love of beauty. " 
Education, say some of our legislators, must give a man the 
means of making a living; our public schools must train up prac- 
tical citizens; boys and girls must be educated in the practical 
arts of life; the ornamental has no place in the school-room. 

Such views of education utterly fail to grasp the nature of 
the imagination and its relation to daily life. They overlook the 
need of securing the right action of all the faculties, and do not 
perceive that the harmonious development of the whole man is 
necessary to the adequate performance of the simplest and most 
practical business of life. Work without imagination is drudgery, 
but with it the humblest employment is lifted into the realm of 
beauty and art. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing 
well. The imagination is the source of all inspiration and interest 
in life ; its activity creates beauty in the commonest objects of 
handicraft, and gives charm to the humblest home. 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

But why should the imagination be trained ? Because its per- 
version or abnormal action is one of the leading causes of the 
degradation of character, while its right use is one of the highest 
characteristics of the normal human being. It should be developed 
because it is the chief creative faculty. It is this which gives 
man taste and refinement; which raises him out of a narrow 
prison into communion with the universe ; which lifts him from a 
groove into relation with all things and all men ; which develops 
the comprehension of universal principles; which prevents man 
from regarding Nature as a mere mechanical product, and enables 
him to feel it as a process, and consciously to follow that process 
in his own art. 

Imagination should be developed because all true appreciation 
of art and literature is dependent upon its exercise. Man can 
appreciate art only by the same faculty which creates it. That 
which is awake in the artist in the act of production must 
be awakened in the beholder, or there can be no genuine reali- 
zation. In short, imagination not only creates all art, but it 
appreciates art. Without its presence there can be no genuine 
love of art ; without it, the language of art is unintelligible, its 
voice unheard, its spirit unfelt. 

Imagination makes the individual a citizen of the world, an 
heir to all the ages ; it enables him to appreciate not only the art of 
his own age and his own country, but that of all other lands and 
times. By its power he can become a G-reek, and see as the 
Greeks saw, and feel as the Greeks felt. 

Imagination lies at the foundation of all altruistic instinct, 
whether of art or ethics. Unless it is developed, there can be 
little improvement in the ideals of a man or a nation. No man 
has ever become great without an ideal, and the faculty which 
gives birth to ideals is imagination. This is the prophetic faculty 
of the soul, which gives hope, and which enables us to see a new 
and better world in the midst of the old, a new life in the midst 
of death, a new character in the midst of degradation. No man 
can ever rise higher than his ideal ; but without an ideal, no man 
can ever rise at all. No age, no nation, no individual, can ever 
be elevated except by elevating its ideals. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

Imagination is the faculty which enables us to enter into 
sympathy with our fellow-men. By its power alone can we 
appreciate the point of view of those different from ourselves. 
Without imagination, each of us would be alone; each of us 
would be cold and selfish. 

Imagination gives us the power to penetrate to the heart of 
Nature; it is the faculty which sees beauty and loveliness; which 
discovers grace in the motion of the storm ; " that leans her ear in 
many a secret place, " until " beauty born of murmuring sound 
shall pass into her face." 

Imagination is the faculty which enables man to realize eternity. 
The ordinary conceptions of the mind cannot embrace infinity, or 
God. Imagination alone enables man to transcend the fetters of 
time and space, to see the eternal through the temporal, the 
spiritual beneath the physical, the soul underlying all. It is im- 
agination which penetrates through all seeming, through the wild 
whirlwind and storm which are part of every life and every human 
soul, to " the central peace existing at the heart of endless 
agitation. " 

The imagination should be trained because the whole man 
should be trained, because it is the fountain-head of all noble 
feeling, and upon its discipline depends any true education of the 
emotions. 

Dramatic instinct has received even less recognition than imagi- 
nation. All men more or less admire imagination, though they 
may not think of it as an object of education; but few persons 
regard dramatic power as a characteristic of a strong and noble 
human being. It is frequently considered an unnatural, if not 
an abnormal power. Nor do many consider it capable of educa- 
tion, but due to some accident of temperament peculiar to a 
few; while even those who regard its education as possible, look 
upon its development as on the same plane as the practice of 
sleight-of-hand. 

There are some exceptions, however, to this superficial view. 
A prominent judge, at a dinner of the alumni of his college, is 
reported to have said that if he were a rich man he would endow 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

a chair in all the colleges for the development of the dramatic 
instinct. Upon this instinct, he held, success in every walk of 
life depends. The teacher cannot teach unless he sees as the 
student sees; the preacher cannot preach without the power of 
putting himself in another man's place ; the merchant succeeds 
on account of the ability to read the wishes and needs of his 
customers. And so it is throughout all human experience and 
endeavor: an instinctive knowledge of human nature is the basis 
of success. All men are great in proportion to their ability to 
get outside of themselves. 

A proper conception of dramatic instinct must be gained apart 
from the stage. Many of the exhibitions upon the stage are 
devoid of anything essentially dramatic. If the stage were a 
place for the pure and noble representation of dramatic instinct, 
there would be few who would have any objection to it. The 
men with the strongest dramatic instinct whom it has been my 
privilege to meet or hear have not been actors, — such men as 
Beecher and GoughT 

Dramatic instinct should be trained because it is a part of the 
imagination, because it gives us practical steps towards the devel- 
opment of the imagination, because it is the means of securing 
discipline and power over feeling. Dramatic instinct should be 
trained because it is the insight .of one mind into another. The 
man who has killed his dramatic instinct has become unsympa- 
thetic, and can never appreciate any one's point of view but his 
own. Dramatic instinct endows us with broad conceptions of the 
idiosyncrasies, beliefs, and convictions of men. It trains us to 
unconscious reasoning, to a deep insight into the motives of man. 
It is universally felt that one's power to " other himself " is the 
measure of the greatness of his personality. All sympathy, all 
union of ourselves with the ideals and struggles of our race, are 
traceable to imagination and dramatic instinct. 

The relation of imagination to dramatic instinct has not been 
sufficiently appreciated. Many years ago the editor of the " ]S T orth 
American Eeview " published a symposium from various actors 
upon the nature of dramatic instinct. It is curious to note that 
nearly all these said that dramatic instinct had two elements, — 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

imagination and sympathy. Imagination affords insight into 
character; sympathy enables us to identify ourselves with it. 
Thus, imagination and dramatic instinct are essentially united. 
The little child who is imaginative always shows it by dramatic 
actions in his play. 

While imagination and dramatic instinct may be separated in 
conception, while the difference in their actions may be distin- 
guished, practically- they are always united, especially in their 
higher actions. Together they form the chief elements of altruism. 
They redeem the mind from narrowness and selfishness; they 
enable the individual to appreciate the point of view, the feelings, 
motives, and characters of his fellow-men; they open his eyes to 
read the various languages of human art ; they enable him to com- 
mune with his kind on a higher plane than that of commonplace 
facts; they lift him into communion with the art and spirit of 
every age and nation. Without their development man is ex- 
cluded from the highest enjoyment, the highest communion with 
his kind, and from the highest success in every walk of life. 

One of the chief needs of the education of our time is a prac- 
tical method for the development of the imagination and the 
dramatic instinct, — a method which will prevent their abuse, 
bring the mind into direct contact with the greatest products of 
the imagination, and train students to appreciate the highest 
literature and art. There are many methods of studying and 
training > these powers, but the one here to be indicated has proved 
successful through many years of experience, and is essentially 
the same as that adopted in the schools of the Greeks, whose 
development of the artistic nature is universally considered to 
have been the highest ever known. 

The best method of developing the imagination is by the study 
of Nature and poetic expression. A sympathetic love of the 
beautiful in Nature is characteristic of noble imagination. Even 
in the study of art there must ever be a comparison with Nature. 
George F. Watts once said, " People must be trained to a higher 
appreciation of art by being led to see what a great artist Na- 
ture is." 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

The influence of Nature in the education of the human mind 
cannot be over-estimated. Wordsworth has taught us to realize 
the power of Nature to stimulate and unfold the energies of the 
soul. All art proceeds from wonder. A sympathetic observation 
of life has been instrumental in every age in stimulating the 
mental and artistic faculties. 

Nature alone, however, is inadequate to secure the full power 
of imagination. Thousands have grown up in the midst of the 
greatest beauty of Nature with low and sensuous ideals, and with- 
out having their sense of beauty awakened. Art is therefore 
needed to show us Nature's subtleties, to give us a right attitude 
of mind towards her, and to awaken sympathetic attention to her 
revelations. 

What form of art should be studied % Every form as far as 
possible ; for each art is a distinct language, which expresses some 
aspect of the human soul and realizes some truth apprehended in 
no other way. Music and poetry are " arts in time, " and can 
reveal the sequence of ideas and the movement of life ; but paint- 
ing works in space, and is confined to the intense realization of one 
moment. It is intensive, where other arts are extensive. Both 
are needed for adequate expression. 

Any one of these arts — even poetry, the highest of all, and 
the most capable of being used as a means of developing the im- 
agination — may, when studied alone, cause the student to become 
one-sided. The painter who never studies anything but his own 
art becomes superficial. The poet who fails to see the depth 
and force in plastic and pictorial art becomes merely literary. 
Painters condemn a picture which is too " literary, " — this use of 
the word indicating those who merely write, who merely look at 
Nature as a means of literary description. On the other hand, 
the painter who never studies books or other arts almost ceases 
to think ; some have even gone so far as to say " the painter has 
no business to think at all." 

Every great art is a special language of the human spirit, and 
he who desires to awaken his artistic nature will learn to read all 
these languages. The possession of merely literary and artistic 
knowledge does not imply culture; for this results from the 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

harmonious activity of all the faculties of the mind. It is depen- 
dent upon appreciation, upon insight into art and poetry, upon 
sympathy with the ideals of humanity. 

Too much cannot be said in favor of the erection of beautiful 
public buildings, and of museums of art. It is to be hoped that 
the time is not far distant when every village will have its art 
collections, when every school-room and every home will be filled 
with objects of art. 

Art which has to do with imagination is called poetry; and 
while poetry belongs to painting, sculpture, music, and architec- 
ture, its chief expression is in certain forms of literary composi- 
tion. A love of poetic literature has nearly always preceded a 
desire for other forms of art. It is always associated with a love 
of the beautiful in Nature; its greatest masterpieces can become 
the possession of all, and hence it must serve as the chief means 
of educating the imagination. 

Again, poetry is fullest of imaginative life and energy. In 
every poem there are possibilities of innumerable paintings, if 
only the artistic nature can intensely realize each successive pic- 
ture. Its materials are the simple words of common minds ; its 
form or body is simply an orderly or rhythmic arrangement of 
human speech. 

Taking for granted, then, that literature will best educate the 
imagination, the question arises, What methods of studying it are 
best adapted to exercise this faculty ? 

Until comparatively recent times, the highest culture was sup- 
posed to be embodied in the Greek and Latin languages. The 
study of these constituted for centuries the chief means of literary 
training. But the great discoveries in every field of scientific 
investigation, during the present century, have led many to doubt 
the power of Greek and Latin to furnish the broadest possible 
education. With this tendency to doubt the advantage of study- 
ing these languages, there has grown up also a neglect of all liter- 
ary culture. At the present time, a majority of the studies in all 
grades of schools concern themselves chiefly with the acquisition 
of knowledge. 



14: INTRODUCTION. 

- The too exclusive study of science, however, is in turn slowly- 
leading to the realization of the inadequacy of facts to develop 
the whole man harmoniously and completely. Slowly but surely 
our leading educators are coming to feel that science alone is 
insufficient for the complete development of the whole man. A 
great scientist of our age, Charles Darwin, has said : " I used to 
sit for hours reading the historical plays of Shakespeare, generally 
in an old window in the thick walls of the school. I read also 
other poetry, such as Thomson's ' Seasons, ' and the recently 
published poems of Byron and Scott. I mention this, because 
later in life I wholly lost, to my great regret, all pleasure from 
poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare." 

In another part of the biography from which this extract is 
taken, he adds : " Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry 
of many kinds — such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, 
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley — gave me great pleasure ; 
and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, 
especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly 
pictures gave me considerable, and music very great, delight. 
But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry : 
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably 
dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for 
pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energet- 
ically on what I have been at work upon, instead of giving me 
pleasure. . '. . My mind seems to have become a machine for 
grinding general laws out of large collections of facts; but why 
this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone 
on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. . . . If I 
had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some 
poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps 
the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept 
active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, 
and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably 
to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our 
nature." 1 

1 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, i. 30, 81. 



INTRODUCTIONS 15 

So innumerable have modern discoveries been, that it is almost 
impossible for any human being to acquire a mastery of all the 
facts in every department of human knowledge. Hence, there is a 
renewed disposition among some educators to defend the true prin- 
ciple of education; namely, mental discipline, rather than depen- 
dence upon the acquisition of unrelated facts. 

This disposition, however, has not been shown in a renewal of 
interest in the study of Greek and Latin, but in the study of one's 
own language and literature. This is the most hopeful sign in 
modern education. It is a man's native literature which lies 
nearest his heart. It is upon this that the creative energy of the 
imagination must be exercised. " The highest mark of culture in 
any man is shown by his ability to speak and write his own 
language with accuracy, ease, and elegance." 

In turning to the study of our own language, however, the true 
method of using it for the stimulation of the artistic nature has 
hardly been reached. Two influences have made the first method 
in the study of literature largely a study of philology. In the 
first place, the reverence given to Latin and Greek has led us to 
trace the origin of our words. In the second place, the scientific 
spirit of the age has affected even the study of literature ; so that 
the courses of studies in literature in our different colleges have 
been chiefly studies in philology. 

The study of literature, however, could not long remain thus 
limited. Such courses were presently felt to - be a study, not of 
literature, but of words; and while etymology and philology are 
very important, they are simply aspects of scientific study, and 
have little to do with the development of the artistic nature. 
Everything may be studied both scientifically and artistically. 
The difference in training is not in the subject, but in the method 
of procedure and the faculties which are called into exercise. 

The next step was the study of the facts of literature. This is 
at present regarded as a great advance in the study of literature. 
That it is a gain, no one will deny ; but the method is still scien- 
tific. The facts about a poem — the aim, the subject, and the 
language used — are all analyzed and discussed. I have known 
many students to say that they never desired to recite or study or 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

even read again those poems which they have analyzed during 
their college course. A great advantage, however, has come 
about by this method. Poetry and general literature are studied, 
and the fact that the student's attention is turned to them, even 
though in the wrong way, has the effect of stimulating him to 
some appreciation of their value. 

Still, the problem of the practical development of the imagina- 
tion has not yet been solved by either of these methods. Art can 
be studied only as art and by means of art. It is not science, nor 
can it be studied as science, or by exercising merely the analytical 
faculties of the mind. All art is a form of poetic expression, and 
the artistic nature can be awakened only by exercise in poetic 
expression in some of its forms. 

The lessons in this book are arranged according to the principle 
that the artistic nature must be developed by being brought into 
active exercise, and that this can be achieved by using the simplest 
and most natural form of art, — that of the spoken word. 

It was the attention given by the Greeks to the spoken word that 
caused them to be the most artistic of peoples. By far the most 
of the work of their schools was the study and recitation of the 
works of their poets. While they may have slighted the written 
word, and exaggerated too much the importance of speech, we in 
our day have gone to the other extreme, and are exaggerating the 
importance of writing as an agent of education, to the exclusion of 
the earlier and more simple and natural method of the human 
voice. The voice is the little child's first conscious agent of 
expression; it is man's chief means of communication; it is 
fullest of the life and energy of the human soul ; it is the simplest 
and most natural agent of the faculties of the mind. Some may 
consider the Greeks to have been the greatest masters of writing 
in the world, and this is true ; but their writing was great because 
founded upon and developed by their speech. 

It is a well-known fact that all poetry was first written with 
reference to delivery; and many of our greatest poets have felt 
that the higher development of poetry cannot come until it is once 
more written with reference to its vocal expression. Milton has 
said, — 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

" Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy, 
Sphere-born harmonious Sisters, Voice and Verse ! 
Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ 
Dead things with imbreathed sense able to pierce.*' 

Be this as it may, the most adequate method of studying litera- 
ture and of developing the imagination and artistic nature is by 
means of the spoken word ; and for this there are many reasons. 

Vocal expression is the most direct revelation of the processes 
of thought and emotion. It is the most immediate manifestation 
of the living activity of the soul, of which literature is the em- 
bodiment. Matthew Arnold called literature " the criticism of 
life." The higher the literature, the more it embodies and sug- 
gests life ; hence the more immediately is it related to the natural 
languages, and the more capable of being interpreted by them. 

The study of vocal expression furnishes a means of following 
the processes of thought. The most subtle movements of the 
imagination and feeling can be studied in connection with their 
vocal response, and this response can be used also as an agent in 
developing right imaginative and emotional action. If education 
is u learning the use of tools, " and if the exercise of the higher 
faculties depends upon the use of a tool, then the voice furnishes 
the simplest of tools for testing and exercising them. 

Again, imagination and the artistic nature can be exercised only 
by means of the most familiar agents. The artist can express 
only what is native and inherent to his heart. Millet, the painter, 
is said to have paused in the midst of his early work, on over- 
hearing a remark about its character, to ask himself what really 
was the most intense affection of his heart. It was because of 
this that he turned to the portrayal of French peasants, and the 
interpretation of the life of the poor. He thus led a new move- 
ment in art; the real spirit of the poor, their heroic devotion, 
their tenderness, their pain, had never before been made the sub- 
ject of art. No amount of contempt on the part of the critics 
nor neglect on the part of the public could ever turn him from 
his conviction that art can portray only the central affection of 
the heart of the artist. The greatest artists of every age have 
used/ the simple means which lay near to their hands. 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

Now, the native speech of every man lies nearest to his imag- 
ination and creative instinct. Vocal expression furnishes a simple 
and universal means of awakening the artistic nature. Speech is 
the primary, the most natural, language, and can be filled fullest 
of the life and spirit of man. The use of his native language 
carries him farther away from the dominion of mechanical rules. 
It is the most spontaneous and unconscious manifestation of the 
natural action of all his faculties. Before the imagination can 
show itself in painting, sculpture, or music, the student must 
have thoroughly mastered its mechanism ; but the student's native 
tongue requires least of such mechanical and artificial mastery, 
and hence can most easily become the agent for the expression and 
testing of imaginative action. 

" Style is the man himself." This statement has received care- 
less acceptance, with very little realization of its truth, or of the 
postulates of such a truth. If style be the man, then artistic 
training must begin with disciplining his powers, and not with the 
external mechanical acquisition of certain facts or artificial rules. 
The cause of expression must be awakened; imagination and in- 
stinct must be quickened. 

The study of general literature must begin by awakening those 
faculties and powers in ourselves which in another created the 
literature. Speech is the first form of expression. We talk be- 
fore we write or draw or paint or model. Hence, the first lan- 
guage is the chief one to be used. 

Of course, the objection will be urged that elocution is at pres- 
ent the most degraded of the arts ; that the recitation of a poem 
frequently perverts its spirit, — and this is true. But the power 
of vocal expression to pervert literature or to destroy imaginative 
action only shows its influence. Its power may be used to ele- 
vate as well as to destroy. 

Two methods of developing vocal expression grow out of two 
diverse views regarding the nature of delivery. 

The advocates of one method consider vocal expression as a 
matter of pronunciation; and delivery a mechanical act having 
little, if any, relation to thinking. A few rules for inflection 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

based upon phraseology, some mechanical directions for stress or 
pausing, according to grammatical structure, and for the " tone " 
to use for a given emotion, form, unfortunately, the common con- 
ception of vocal expression. According to this method, thought 
and imagination belong only to the author. The reader must not 
interpose his mental action between the author and the auditor : 
he must present correctly the form of the author's words. Exactly 
as the printed page presents the language of the author to the eye, 
so the reader must present the words of the author to the ear. 

The other method regards vocal expression as the manifestation 
of the processes of thought and feeling ; that it conveys these by 
natural signs in speaking the words which are only symbols, or 
conventional representatives, of thought. Vocal expression is the 
giving of thought with its associated experience. It presents 
thoughts in such a way as to make another mind realize in the 
fullest possible degree their nature and relations. This view 
holds also that if vocal expression be the translation, the re- 
incarnation of thought and feeling, then the reader must re-think 
the thought; must reproduce its processes and the feeling it 
awakens, according to the laws and associations of his own mind. 

According to this theory, vocal expression is regarded as an 
interpretative art, whose exercise requires the direct action of 
imagination and feeling. Reading is not only an art, but the 
interpretation of the most exalted forms of art and literature. 
Though delivery has a physical and mechanical side; though 
enunciation is necessary and cannot be done too well, — this is not 
the most important element in vocal expression. Vocal expression 
is the direct manifestation of thought and feeling. It is the trans- 
lation into natural language of ideas expressed in words. It is the 
interpretation, or the bringing to life, of the first processes of 
thought and emotion as suggested by the language of words, and 
manifesting these by means of the other co-ordinate languages or 
modulations of voice and body. Vocal expression manifests the 
speaker's own thought and feeling, or his assimilation and realiza- 
tion of that of others. 

Again, the action of the mind in writing is not the same as that 
in reading and 'speaking. The reader uses the natural languages 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

as his medium, not the pen; hence, he must think and feel with 
greater intensity than the writer. By him the ideas of the writer 
are made salient, their movement more natural, their realization 
more vivid. 

According to any adequate view of the nature of vocal expres- 
sion and delivery there must, therefore, he a definite training of 
those faculties concerned with the realization of truth. The de- 
velopment of vocal expression is dependent upon and simultane- 
ous with the acquisition of literary taste. A man cannot express 
what he does not possess. The refinement of feeling, the intense 
realization of ideas, is fundamentally necessary. 

Eight vocal expression, then, is dependent upon the realization 
of truth; and the faculty most concerned with this is imagination. 
Where the imagination is inactive, all expression is mechanical 
and cold. " Imagination, " says Fenelon, " is the only creative 
faculty of the human mind." It is the faculty which lies at the 
fountain-head of all art. Hence, that faculty which enahles man 
to live in a mental world, to hold such an ideal before his mind 
that he can rise out of the literal and the actual; that faculty 
which enahles him to live in a process of thought, to see and hear 
whatever is conceived by the mind as if it had real existence, — is 
especially necessary in vocal expression. 

Again, the mind must continually change its point of view. 
There must be insight not only into truth and Nature, but into 
men. The reader, speaker, or actor must have quick and instinc- 
tive insight into character. He must see as others see, and feel 
as others feel. He must have that sympathy which will enable 
him to identify himself with all situations. 

Sympathy, it has been said, is synonymous with insight. A 
lack of sympathy is a lack of imagination. Without imagination 
there can be no true appreciation, no earnest feeling. 

Imagination appeals to imagination. Literature and poetry can- 
not be interpreted without the help of imagination to appreciate 
the highest ideals and most poetic visions. An interpretative art 
must accentuate the deepest and most fundamental elements in 
the matter interpreted. Imagination is needed to stimulate the 
deeper impulses, and to bring voice and body into unity. It 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

alone can give such a vivid realization of ideas as to awaken all 
the complex impulses and languages of man. It is needed to pre- 
vent isolation of ideas, and the hardening of truths into mere 
facts. It is needed to place ideas and facts in sympathetic rela- 
tionship with one another; to give the spirit and not the letter, 
truth and not mere fact, the soul and not the mere body. 

Vocal expression is the direct result of the free, spontaneous 
impulses of mind and heart. The actions and characteristics of 
the imagination furnish the most essential qualities of vocal ex- 
pression. No form of art is more intuitive and immediate; 
nowhere are rules so impossible as in its sphere. All actions in 
vocal expression are the direct and immediate result of insight. 
Nowhere is there needed more penetration, more stimulus to 
feeling ; nowhere is there such need to awaken a play of free and 
spontaneous activity. 

The object of rendering a passage of poetry, the function of 
delivery in oratory, is to make truth more vivid; to give it the 
life of a personality; to bring unity out of diversity; to change 
abstractions into living and moving creations. All these funda- 
mental requisites of oratory, of eloquence, of poetry, are the direct 
product of imagination. Hence, this faculty is the chief charac- 
teristic of right delivery. Its development will secure naturalness 
and effectiveness, and prevent artificiality and affectation. 



The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ; 

Little we see in Nature that is ours: 

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 

This sea that hares her bosom to the moon ; 

The winds that will be howling at all hours, 

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, — 

For this, for everything, we are out of tune ; 

It moves us not. — Great God ! I 'd rather be 

A pagan suckled in a creed outworn, 

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 



Beauty — a living Presence of the earth, 

Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms 

Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed 

From earth's materials — waits upon my steps ; 

Pitches her tent before me as I move, 

An hourly neighbor. Paradise, and groves 

Elysian, Fortunate Fields — like those of old 

Sought in the Atlantic Main — why should they be 

A history only of departed things, 

Or a mere fiction of what never was ? 

For the discerning intellect of Man, 

When wedded to this goodly universe 

In love and holy passion, shall find these 

A simple produce of the common day. 

— I, long before the blissful hour arrives, 
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse 
Of this great consummation : — and, by words 
Which speak of nothing more than what we are, 
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep 

Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain 
To noble raptures ; while my voice proclaims 
How exquisitely the individual Mind 
(And the progressive powers perhaps no less 
Of the whole species) to the external World 
Is fitted : — and how exquisitely, too — 
The external World is fitted to the Mind ; 
And the creation (by no lower name 
Can it be called) which they with blended might 
Accomplish : — this is our high argument. 

— Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft 
Must turn elsewhere — travel and see ill sights 
Of madding passions mutually inflamed ; 
Must hear humanity in fields and groves 

Pipe solitary anguish ; or must hang 
Brooding above the fierce confederate storm 
Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore 
Within the walls of cities — may these sounds 
Have their authentic comment ; that even these 
Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn ! — 
Descend, prophetic Spirit ! that inspir'st 
The human Soul of universal earth, 
Dreaming on things to come ; and dost possess 
A metropolitan temple in the hearts 
Of mighty Poets. 



The Recluse. 



Wordsworth. 



IMAGINATION, OE THE CEEATIVE INSTINCT. 



I. CONCEPTION AND IMAGINATION. 

In a valiant suffering for others, not in a slothful making of others suffer 
for us, did nobleness ever lie. Every noble crown is, and on Earth will ever 
be, a crown of thorns. Carlyle. 

Music, when soft voices die, [/ 

Vibrates in the memory ; 

Odours, when sweet violets sicken, 

Live within the sense they quicken ; 

Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead, 

Are heap'd for the beloved's bed : 

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, 

Love itself shall slumber on. Shelley. 

In the first of the two sentences of the first extract a truth is 
stated plainly. In the second, the mind is made to realize the 
same idea with ten-fold force. What causes the difference ? In 
the first there is a sequence of simple conceptions; in the second 
the mind suddenly and spontaneously discovers unity and relation- 
ship among diverse ideas. In the first clause a plain truth is 
stated in a simple and direct way ; in the second, a concrete pic- 
ture is made to stand for a universal truth. 

In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone, upon a wintry height ; 
It sleeps : around it snows have thrown a covering of white. 
It dreams forever of a Palm that, far i' the Morning-land, 
Stands silent in a most sad calm midst heaps of burning sand. 
From Heine. Lanier. 

Diverse objects and situations are here brought into direct and 
vivid contrast, while unity is discovered between them. The 



24 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

attention is so attracted by living images that the powers of the 
mind are quickened and made to realize a thought intensely. The 
importance of vivid conceptions and their relations to vocal ex- 
pression has already been explained; but in such extracts and 
selections as the two preceding we find something more than 
isolated ideas or logical relations. Here are higher relations of 
ideas to one another and more complex conceptions. A peculiar 
faculty is found active, which contemplates objects and penetrates 
through all superficial relations to ideas which are more central 
and ideal; and which also brings together two more or less com- 
monplace conceptions into such organic unity as to suggest and 
awaken interest in an exalted truth. It discovers, not by reason- 
ing or conscious comparison, but by an intuitive, spontaneous, 
prophetical vision a hidden truth or unity amid seemingly diverse 
ideas. The power concerned in this process is usually called 
the imagination. 

Poetry was defined by Aristotle as the universal element in 
human life. The imagination has always something of this 
universalizing tendency. It is the faculty which gives universal 
truth ' by presenting concrete conceptions. 

Poetry, however, has never been defined by prose: otherwise 
prose would be superior to poetry. Neither has imagination ever 
been adequately defined by reason. Imagination is the transcen- 
dent faculty of the human mind. It is a power by which the 
mind arrives at truth through an immediate process. It is uncon- 
scious reason. It sees truth from the heart, and not by external and 
objective comparison; hence, reason cannot adequately define it. 

" If asked, " says Mr. Shairp, " what imagination is, who can 
tell 1 If we turn to the psychologists, — the men who busy 
themselves with labelling and ticketing the mental faculties, — 
they do not help us. Scattered through the poets, here and 
there, and in some writers on aesthetic subjects, notably in the 
works of Mr. Ruskin, we find thoughts which are more sugges- 
tive." There will be here, therefore, no effort made to analyze 
this faculty ; but certain illustrations will be given of some of its 
actions, so that its presence and the conditions of its exercise may 
be recognized. 



CONCEPTION AND IMAGINATION. 25 

One of the most common notions regarding the imagination is 
that it pictures for the mind that which is not an object of sense. 
It is the image-making faculty: this gives it its name. It is 
regarded as one of the reproductive faculties, the memory being 
the other. This definition, however, confuses imagination with 
conception. 

It is well carefully to distinguish imagination from conception. 
In general, conception has reference to single objects or ideas: 
imagination to their relation. An idea to be conceived is more or 
less isolated. Imagination, on the other hand, has a vision of an 
organic whole, composed of dissimilar objects or ideas. Imagina- 
tion does not perceive mere fragments : it sees the whole at once. 
Its action is free and untrammelled. It never repeats itself. It 
never constructs by patchwork or by process of aggregation. It 
creates, as Nature does, from the centre outward; its visions 
grow. It is always characterized by simplicity, by unity and 
truth. The imagination creates all our ideals, and is the soul of 
all inspiration. Conceptions may weary, memory may pall upon 
our attention; but imagination, never. 

Conception may be vivid, and imagination dim ; for conception 
deals with distinct features, with things which lie on the plane of 
sense ; whereas imagination may rise into the realm of pure spirit. 
The difference between conception and imagination has been very 
simply and plainly stated by Professor Shairp : "To a man's 
ordinary conception of things imagination adds force, clearness, 
distinction of outline, vividness of coloring." Imagination vital- 
izes all knowledge, shows us the kinship of things, gives to every 
object a situation or background, and so prevents knowledge from 
becoming isolated or disconnected; enables the soul to feel the 
life of the universe permeating every object. 

We can analyze and read the following Shakespearian lyric so 
as to destroy all its poetry. A mere lark, or a mere gate, or even 
the flowers, or sunbeams in isolation, furnish no clew whatever to 
the thought or beauty of the poem. It is only when we take all 
these together, give vivid coloring and atmosphere, and idealize 
them into parts of one beautiful picture of morning, that we have 
the spirit of the poem : — 



26 



IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 



Hark ! hark ! the lark at Heaven's gate sings, 

And Phoebus 'gins arise, 
His steeds to water at those springs 

On chaliced flowers that lies j 
And winking Mary-buds begin 

To ope their golden eyes ; 
With everything that pretty bin, 

My lady sweet, arise ! 
Arise ! arise ! 



Cymbeline. 



Shakespeare. 



Imagination does not isolate conceptions: it not only conceives 
„ideas and makes them clearer, but creates vital relations and 
restores normal situations and environment. Beauty and art 
deal with relation. Art is the creation of the right relation of 
objects. As life depends on environment, so do beauty, truth, and 
religion. The highest judgment of the human mind is a proper 
co-ordination of different ideas. 



THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 

A naked house, a naked moor, 
A shivering pool before the door, 
A garden bare of flowers and fruit, 
And poplars at the garden foot, — 
Such is the place that I live in, 
Bleak without and bare within. 

Yet shall your ragged moor receive 
The incomparable pomp of eve, 
And the cold glories of the dawn 
Behind your shivering trees be drawn ; 
And when the wind from place to place 
Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase, 
Your garden gloom and gleam again, 
With leaping sun, with dancing rain. 
Here shall the wizard moon ascend 
The heavens, in the crimson end 
Of day's declining splendor ; here 
The army of the stars appear. 
The neighbor hollows dry or wet, 
Spring shall with tender flowers beset ; 
And oft the morning muser see 
Larks rising from the broomy lea, 



CONCEPTION AND IMAGINATION. 27 

And every fairy wheel and thread 

Of cobweb dew-bediamonded. 

When daisies go, shall winter time 

Silver the simple grass with rime, 

Autumnal frosts enchant the pool 

And make the cart-ruts beautiful. 

And when snow -bright the moor expands, 

How shall your children clap their hands ! 

To make this earth, our hermitage, 

A cheerful and a pleasant page, 

God's bright and intricate device 

Of days and seasons doth suffice. Robert Louis Stevenson. 

In the first six lines of the foregoing extract we find simple 
conceptions, given without atmosphere, or without any feeling of 
connection with other objects. In the next few lines the very 
same objects are taken up under the dominion of the imagination. 
Here there is insight into the relation or fellowship of things. 
Pictures of the simplest and plainest ohjects are filled by the 
imagination with all the beauty of light and atmosphere. In the 
first part, the house and objects are given literally. In the 
second, we have their fellowship with the sun and sky, with wind 
and weather. Things are painted as they exist in Nature, shar- 
ing in one another's life, reflecting and changing one another's 
appearance, as they have done every moment through all the 
history of the ages; and thus they are contemplated and con- 
ceived by a sympathetic mind that perceives from the heart. 

Problem I. Read a passage with definite, vivid conceptions, but with- 
out imaginative action; and then read the same with vivid conceptions 
related to one another by the imagination, and note the difference in effect 
upon the voice. 

Problem II. Read an imaginative passage with definite, clear, but 
isolated conceptions, and notice how the spirit of the passage is degraded. 

Problem III. Read a beautiful passage with, and then without, any 
background, and note the difference in expression. 

Problem IV. Distinguish between analytic and synthetic actions of 
the mind, and their effect upon the voice. 



28 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

New voices come to me where'er I roam ; 

My heart, too, widens with its widening home : 

The former songs seem little ; yet no more 

Can soul, hand, voice, with interchanging lore, 

Tell what the earth is saying unto me : 

The secret is too great. George Eliot. 



THE HOUSE OF THE TREES. 

Ope your doors and take me in, spirit of the wood ! 
Wash me clean of dust and din, clothe me in your mood. 
Take me from the noisy light to the sunless peace, 
"Where at midday standeth Night singing Toil's release. 
All your dusky twilight stores to my senses give ; 
Take me in and lock the doors, show me how to live. 
Lift your leafy roof for me, part your yielding walls : 
Let me wander lingeringly through your scented halls. 
Ope your doors and take me in, spirit of the wood ! 
Take me — make me next of kin to your leafy brood. 

Ethelwyn Wetherald. 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen 

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, 

Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy : 

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 

With ugly rack on his celestial face, 

And from the forlorn world his visage hide, 

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace : 

Even so my sun one early morn did shine, 

With all triumphant splendor on my brow ; 

But out ! alack ! he was but one hour mine, — 

The regent cloud hath masked him from me now. 

Yet him for this my love no whit disdain eth ; 

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth. 

Shakespeare. 

Such a starved bank of moss till, that May-morn, 
Blue ran the flash across : violets were born ! 
Sky — what a scowl of cloud till, near and far, 
Ray on ray split the shroud : splendid, a star ! 
World — how it walled about life with disgrace 
Till God's own smile came out : that was thy face ! 

Browning. 



IMAGINATIVE ATTENTION. 29 

Not only around our infancy 

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie : 

Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 

We Sinais climb, and know it not. 

Over our manhood bend the skies ; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 

The great winds utter prophecies ; 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives ; 

Its arms outstretched, the Druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite ; 

And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. Lowell. 



II. IMAGINATIVE ATTENTION. 

The eye — it cannot choose but see ; we cannot bid the ear be still ; 

Our bodies feel, where'er they be, against or with our will. 

Nor less I deem that there are Powers which of themselves our minds impress, 

That we can feed this mind of ours in a wise passiveness. 

One impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, than all the sages can. 
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings ; our meddling intellect 
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things : we murder to dissect. 

One moment now may give us more than years of toiling reason : 
Our minds shall drink at every pore the spirit of the season. 

Wordsworth. 

If you ask any one whether attention is active or passive, he will 
be sure to answer, " It is active, of course. " The reason for this 
is on account of the emphasis that is usually placed upon rational 
analysis, upon intellectual concentration, upon one fact or object or 
idea, to the exclusion of all others. By attention, most persons 
mean the concentration of the. mind upon one thing to the exclu- 
sion of all others. But when we come to observe more carefully, 
we find that this is not the whole of attention. If at a symphony 
concert we give our attention to one man only in the orchestra, or 
to one instrument, excluding by the action of our mind the effect 
of others, we do not enjoy the music. Again, if we enter a gallery 



30 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

and observe one little detail in a picture, we shall not get the true 
impression which the picture is meant to create. The same is true 
of a poem. We must contemplate the whole. Thus there is an 
analytic attention which is more active, and an artistic or synthetic 
attention which is more passive. 

To enjoy music, we must hold ourselves in a responsive attitude 
toward the whole orchestra. To enjoy a painting, we must stand 
away from it, and allow the unity of the whole to impress us; 
allow the rhythm, consciously or unconsciously, to dominate us, — 
until the situation of the whole has been created. Then, and then 
only, does the true feeling arise which the picture was intended to 
awaken. 

The same mental attitude is needful not only for appreciation of 
every object of art, but in regard to Nature herself. Even when 
we listen to a bird, a certain sympathetic or impressionable, not a 
mechanical or analytic, attention is requisite. In looking upon a 
flower or beautiful landscape, it is only when we feel the relation 
of the whole that we get a sense of beauty or loveliness. 

Art has been denned as relation; hence, the artistic nature 
demands the development of contemplative attention. According 
to Delsarte, contemplation is the most exalted faculty of art. We 
must gaze upon the face of Nature, or upon a work of art, our 
whole nature being co-ordinate, and with such intensity as to cause 
a sympathetic response ; only thus do appreciation and comprehen- 
sion become possible. 

In the study of our conceptions, we find, that, in attempting to 
vivify and make clear our ideas, there is a natural tendency to iso- 
late conceptions from one another. As we think one thing, we 
exclude all else, that our ideas may be distinct and adequate. But 
in any work of art, ideas or objects, on the contrary, are brought 
into such living relation as will produce a general impression rather 
than a specific conception of details. 

Some one has said that the supreme faculty of art is the faculty 
of generalization. There is a great difference between a picture 
and a statue. A statue is simply a representation of the object, — 
it corresponds with the conception; but when an artist paints a 
picture, his greatest problem is to generalize the details of his 



IMAGINATIVE ATTENTION. 31 

work so as to give oneness of impression, and to awaken definite 
feeling. 

All art is expression ; and expression is an equivalent that can 
exist out of the mind. Art is not a representation of objects, or 
even of the conception of objects: it is the intervention of person- 
ality ; it is the revelation of the feeling soul ; it is the expression 
of the man. It has been said that one of Corot's paintings of 
Morning " contains in it something of all the mornings that have 
ever been. " It is not a literal photograph of some specific facts or 
details of one particular morning, or of certain trees or leaves or 
colors which he saw, but an impression so given as to awaken the 
right attitude of the man towards morning. It appeals to the 
universal human heart, and calls forth the same feeling as the 
morning itself. 

Two forms of attention are therefore necessary. Contemplative 
attention is just as necessary as active attention. In fact, a failure 
to change our point of view, and to exercise sympathetic attention, 
is the chief cause of a lack of love for Nature, music, painting, 
or art. 

We often fail to realize the character of human language. We 
look upon it as all upon the plane of commonplace or rational 
action. We do not perceive that every art has a specific nature 
distinct from every other; that a painting expresses something 
which can never be told by a poem ; that music reveals an aspect 
of the human spirit which can hardly be suggested by a statue ; 
and that to read the language of arf, the attention of the human 
being must be trained to act in different ways, — passively and 
responsively as well as actively. At all times the man must be 
able to vary his point of view, and especially never to lose the fun- 
damental character of realistic attention. 

The highest mark of culture is the ability to read all languages 
of the human soul. This ability is not dependent merely upon 
knowledge, which may sometimes arouse prejudice or prevent 
teachableness. To know too much of some period of art may 
cause us to make this a standard for the judgment of every other 
movement in art. However much we know about any one form 
or any one period of art, we must be careful to remain passive and 



32 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

contemplative in attending to new movements and other forms of 
art, or to the art of different peoples. 

Such passive responsiveness, such reposeful and unprejudiced 
attitudes of receptivity, are not only necessary to the appreciation 
of art, but to any exercise of the imagination. The reason may 
pre-judge, may mechanically compare, may be unreceptive and 
unresponsive; but not so with the imagination. Intellectual or 
commonplace attention may dwell upon accidents, but imagination 
looks to the heart. Imagination is the spontaneous result of sym- 
pathetic contemplative attention. 

Peoblem V. — Read a passage, first with analytic attention, and 
then with contemplative attention, and note the difference in action. 

My soul is an enchanted boat, 
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float 
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; 

And thine doth like an angel sit 

Beside a helm conducting it, 
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. 

It seems to float ever, forever, 

Upon that many-winding river, 

Between mountains, woods, abysses, — 

A paradise of wildernesses ! 
Till, like one in slumber bound, 
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, 
Into a sea profound of ever-spreading sound. 

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions 

In music's most serene dominions ; 
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. 

And we sail on, away, afar, 

Without a course, without a star, 
But by the instinct of sweet music driven, — 

Till through Elysian garden islets 

By thee, most beautiful of pilots, 

Where never mortal pinnace glided, 

The boat of my desire is guided : 
Realms where the air we breathe is love, 
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move, 
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above. 

Shelley. 



IMAGINATIVE ATTENTION. 33 



THE CUCKOO. 



Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove ! Thou messenger of spring ! 

Now heaven repairs thy rural seat, and woods thy welcome sing. 

What time the daisy decks the green, thy certain voice we hear : 

Hast thou a star to guide thy path, or mark the rolling year ? 

Delightful visitant ! with thee I hail the time of flowers, 

And hear the sound of music sweet from birds among the bowers. 

The schoolboy, wandering through the wood to pull the primrose gay, 

Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, and imitates thy lay. 

What time the pea puts on the bloom, thou fliest thy vocal vale, 

An annual guest in other lands, another spring to hail. 

Sweet bird ! thy bower is ever green, thy sky is ever clear ; 

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, no winter in thy year ! 

Oh could I fly, I 'd fly with thee ! We 'd make, with joyful wing, 

Our annual visit o'er the globe, companions of the spring. 

John Logan. 



LOVERS AND MUSIC. 

Lorenzo. The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, 1 
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, 
And, they did make no noise, — in such a night 
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, 
And sigh'd his sold towards the Grecian tents, 
Where Cressid lay that night. 

Jessica. In such a night 

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew, 
And saw the lion's shadow ere himself, 
And ran dismay 'd away. 

Lor. In such a night 

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 
Upon the wild sea-banks, and wav'd her love 
To come again to Carthage. 

Jes'. In such a night 

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs 
That did renew old iEson. 

Lor. In such a night 

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew ; 
And with an unthrift love did run from Venice, 
As far as Belmont. 

1 The passages printed in Italics were so marked by Leigh Hunt, to indicate the 

presence of imagination. 

2 

\ 



34 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Jes. And in such a night 

Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well ; 
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith, 
And ne'er a true one. 

Lor. And in such a night 

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew, 
Slander her Jove, and he forgave it her. 

Jes. I would out-night you, did nobody come ; 
But, hark! I hear the footing of a man. [Enter Stephano. 

Lor. Who comes so fast in silence of the night ? 

Steph. A friend. 

Lor. A friend ! what friend ? Your name, I pray you, friend? 

Steph. Stephano is my name : and I bring word 
*M.j mistress will, before the break of day, 
Be here at Belmont : she doth stray about 
By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays 
For happy wedlock hours. 

Lor. Who comes with her ? 

Steph. None but a holy hermit and her maid. 

Lor. Sweet soul, let 's in, and there expect their coming. 
And yet no matter : why should we go in ? 
My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you, 
Within the house, your mistress is at hand ; 

And bring your music forth into the air. [Exit Stephano. 

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music 
Creep into our ears ; soft stillness and the night 
Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
Sit, Jessica. Look, how the floor of heaven 
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold ; 
There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims. 
Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 

Both grossly close us in, we cannot hear it. [Enter Musicians. 

Come, ho ! and wake Diana with a hymn ; 
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear, 
And draw her home with music. (Music. ) 

Jes. I am never merry when I hear sweet music. 

Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive : 
For do but note a wild and wanton herd, 
A race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
Fetching mad bounds, — bellowing and neighing loud, 



IMAGINATIVE ATTENTION. 35 

"Which is the hot condition of their blood : 

If they but hear, perchance, a trumpet sound, 

Or any air of music touch their ears, 

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, — 

Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze 

By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet 

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods, 

Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage, 

But music for the time doth change his nature. 

The man that hath no music in himself, 

Nor is not mov'd by concord of sweet sounds, 

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; 

The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 

And his affections dark as Erebus. 

Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. 

{Enter Portia and Nerissa at distance. 

Por. That light we see is burning in my hall ; 
How far that little candle throws its beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

Ner. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle. 

Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less ; 
A substitute shines brightly as a king, 
Until a king be by ; and then his state 
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook 
Into the main of waters. Music ! hark ! 

Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house. 

Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect ; 
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day. 

Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam. 

Por. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, 
When neither is attended ; and, I think, 
The nightingale, if she should sing by day, 
When every goose is cackling, would be thought 
No better a musician than the wren. 
How many things by season season'd are 
To their right praise and true perfection ! 
Peace, hoa ! the moon sleeps with Endymion, 
And would not be awak'd! (Music ceases.) 

Lor. That is the voice, 

Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia. 

Por. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo, — 
By the bad voice. 

Lor. Dear lady, welcome home. 

Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare. 



36 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The champaign with its endless fleece 

Of feathery grasses everywhere ! 
Silence and passion, joy and peace, 

An everlasting wash of air, — ... 
Such life here, through such length of hours, 

Such miracles performed in play, 
Such primal naked forms of flowers, 

Such letting Nature have her way. Browning. 



III. IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 

In front the awful Alpine track 
Crawls up its rocky stair ; 
The autumn storm-winds drive the rack 
Close o'er it in the air. 

Behind are the abandoned baths 
Mute in their meadows lone ; 
The leaves are on the valley paths, 
The mists are on the Rhone, — 

The white mists rolling like a sea ! 

I hear the torrents roar. 

Yes, Obermann ! all speaks of thee ; 

I feel thee near once more ! Matthew Arnold. 

In reading these lines by Matthew Arnold, a number of questions 
naturally spring up in the mind. What is meant by Obermann ; 
what baths are referred to ; what special place is in the mind of 
the poet? We read the whole poem, and find from the poet's 
notes that it was written after the death of Senancour, the author 
of " Obermann, " and that the sympathies of Matthew Arnold have 
been deeply stirred. We find also that the " abandoned baths " 
are the baths of Leuk, and that the " poem was conceived, and 
partly composed, in the valley going down from the foot of the 
Gemmi Pass towards the Rhone." 

On reading these facts, those who have visited the place may- 
remember the scene; but if they enjoy the poem, though they 
may begin with memory, the whole situation will be very soon 
transformed in their minds. They will read the poem, not with 
an act of memory, but with the aid of imagination. Poetry ex- 



IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 37 

presses the universal element in human nature. Arnold's words 
do not appeal to memory, but to a higher faculty. He meant to 
place in every reader's mind a background for certain feelings. 
The poem is not a literal description of what he himself saw. 

Some one prepared a book, locating all the events referred to in 
Tennyson's " Idyls of the King; " but the poet was displeased, — : 
it was foreign to the true spirit of poetry. Tennyson had endeav- 
ored to appeal to the universal heart and imagination of mankind. 
He had written no book of description or travel, and any attempt 
to locate literally the scenes would be only a hindrance to the 
universal appreciation or true realization of the poetry. 

Poetry appeals to the imagination ; memory and conception may 
furnish the materials, but imagination idealizes and universalizes 
them. True poetry is but suggestion. This is the function of 
poetry and art. Before a literal object, no two minds have the 
same impression. Art alone can awaken a corresponding feeling 
and impression in different hearts. It does this by an appeal to 
the imagination. This is the creative power, the faculty which 
conceives essentials rather than accidentals, and realizes the rela- 
tions of objects to one another and to human feeling. 

Imagination is most active in that which is familiar. It uses 
the simplest, the most insignificant objects and the most familiar 
scenes as the material for its exalted flights. Notice in illustration 
of this the following translation of a poem in which the writer 
speaks of her own home : — 

MY REST. 

Round yon snowy house green woods dream ; 

'Twixt the giant boughs moonbeams stream. 

Ah ! fain I 'd adore ev'ry tree ; 

Here dreamt I of yore happily. 

All my many songs found I here, 

'Mid thy branches heard, woodland dear ! 

In my tiny robin, vine entwin'd, 

Can I those sweet thoughts once more find ? 

Here the Rhine like to silv'ry band, 

Like to sunbeam, flows o'er the land. 

Wind, which 'mid green boughs o'er me blows, 

Once thy lullaby brought repose. Carmen Sylva. 



38 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Of nearly every great scene, — Mont Blanc or Niagara, for 
instance, — most persons carry an imaginary picture as well as a 
memory of the place itself. In reading a poem describing such 
objects, it is the imagined scene which is foremost. After long 
familiarity with some locality, the imagination and memory tend 
to become one. But even in this case there are a thousand 
memories of different sunrises and sunsets, of different aspects 
of light, of various conditions of atmosphere; and in reading, 
it is hardly possible to apply any one of these specially. In 
nearly all cases the scene is imagined to suit the mental attitude 
of the moment. 

Many persons in travelling see nothing, because they do not use 
the imagination. A mere superficial glancing at some scene, a 
rushing through a country on an express train, gives very little 
food for imagination. The true traveller endeavors to blend his 
imaginative conception with the observation of the scene itself. 

Imagination is not antagonistic to observation. In order to read 
a poem well, we analyze it, we study all possible references, we 
look up facts regarding places mentioned, we refer to events of 
history, we study the lives of any historical characters which may 
be referred to; but in the act of reading, all this knowledge is 
so assimilated that it furnishes only a background or material for 
imaginative conception. 

Memory recalls specific facts and objects; but imagination sup- 
plies situations and living relations. Jmagination takes facts, and 
gives them vital kinship to other facts. It deals not with the 
letter, but with the spirit. " Imagination, " says Wordsworth, " has 
no reference to images that are merely a faithful copy, existing in 
the mind, of absent external objects; but is a word of higher im- 
port, denoting operations of the mind upon those objects, and 
processes of creation or of composition. 

" * half way down* 
Hangs one who gathers samphire,' 

is the well-known expression of Shakespeare, delineating an ordi- 
nary image upon the cliffs of Dover." Here is found "a slight 
exertion of the faculty which I denominate imagination, in the 



IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 39 

use of one word: neither the goats nor the samphire-gatherer do 
literally hang, as does the parrot or the monkey ; but, presenting 
to the senses something of such an appearance, the mind in its 
activity, for its own gratification, contemplates them as hanging. 

" ' As when far off at sea a fleet descried 
Hangs in the clouds : ... so seemed 
Far off the flying Fiend.' 

Here is the full strength of the imagination involved in the word 
hangs, and exerted upon the whole image. First, the fleet, an 
aggregate of many ships, is represented as one mighty person, 
whose track, we know and feel, is upon the waters; but, taking 
advantage of its appearance to the senses, the Poet dares to repre- 
sent it as hanging in the clouds, both for the gratification of the 
mind in contemplating the image itself, and in reference to the 
motion and appearance of the sublime objects to which it is 
compared. " 

Problem VI. Read an extract, and call into exercise simply the mem- 
ory : then read the same extract with an imaginative atmosphere, without 
perverting memory. 

The old trees 
Which grew by our youth's home ; the waving mass 
Of climbing plants, heavy with bloom and dew ; 
The morning swallows with their songs like words, — 
All these seem clear and most distinct amid 
The fever and the stir of after years. Browning. 

Problem VII. Read a description of some place, and show how the 
imagination can build upon memory, and act without perverting it. 

Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 

The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 

Lone Mother of dead empires ! and control 

In their shut breasts their petty misery. 

"What are our woes and sufferance \ Come and see 

The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 

O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye ! 

Whose agonies are evils of a day ! 

A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 



40 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The Niobe of nations! .there she stands, 

Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe, 

An empty urn within her withered hands, 

Whose holy dust was scattered long ago. 

The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; 

The very sepulchres lie tenantless 

Of their heroic dwellers : dost thou flow, 

Old Tiber, through a marble wilderness ? 

Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress ! 



Byron. 



MONT BLANC BEFORE SUNRISE.* 

Hast thou a charm to stay the Morning-star 
In his steep course ? So long he seems to pause 
On thy bald, awful head, sovereign Blanc ! 
The Arve and the Arveiron at thy base 
Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form, 
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, 
How silently ! Around thee, and above, 
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, 
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it 
As with a wedge. But when I look again 
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, 
Thy habitation from eternity. 

dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee 
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, 

Didst vanish from my thought ! entranced in prayer 

1 worshipped the Invisible alone. 

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melod}'', — 

So sweet we know not we are listening to it, — 

Thou, the mean while wast blending with my thought, 

Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy ; 

Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, 

Into the mighty vision passing — there, 

As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven. 

Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise; 
Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears, 
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy ! Awake, 
Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake ! 
Green vales and icy cliffs ! all join my hymn ! 

1 In parts, a paraphrase of Fredrike Brim's poem, p. 222. 



IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 41 

Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale ! 
Oh, struggling with the darkness all the night, 
And visited all night by troops of stars, 
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink, — 
Companion of the Morning-star at dawn, 
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn 
Co-herald — wake ! oh, wake ! and utter praise ! 
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ? 
"Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ? 
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ? 

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! 

Who called you forth from night and utter death, 

From dark and icy caverns called you forth, 

Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, 

Forever shattered, and the same forever ? 

Who gave you your invulnerable life, 

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, 

Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam ? 

And who commanded, — and the silence came, — 

" Here let the billows stiffen and have rest " ? 

Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
Adown enormous ravines slope amain, — 
Torrents, methink3, that heard a mighty voice, 
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! 
Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! 
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven 
Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun 
Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living flowers 
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? 

" God ! " let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 

Answer ! and let the ice-plain echo, "God ! " 

"God ! " sing, ye meadow streams, with gladsome voice ! 

Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds I . 4 

And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, 

And in their perilous fall shall thunder, " God ! " 

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! 

Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! 

Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm ! 

Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! 

Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! 

Utter forth " God ! " and fill the hills with praise ! 



42 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Thou too, hoar Mount ! with thy sky-pointing peaks, 

Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, 

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene 

Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast, — 

Thou too, again, stupendous mountain ! thou 

That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 

In adoration, upward from thy base 

Slow travelling, with dim eyes suffused with tears, 

Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, 

To rise before me, — rise, oh, ever rise ! 

Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth ! 

Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills, 

Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, 

Great Hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky, 

And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. Coleridge. 

Problem VIII. Read an account of some historic event, and show how 
the imagination may he used to realize its significance more vividly. 

THE CONCORD HYMN. 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood, 

And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 

We set to-day a votive stone, 
That memory may their deed redeem, 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 

To die, or leave their children free ! 
Bid Time and Nature gently spare 

The shaft we raise to them and thee. Emerson 



This precious stone set in a silver sea, 
Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
Or as a moat defensive of a house 
Against the enemy of less happier lands 



IMAGINATION AND SCIENCE. 43 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England ! — 
This England never did, nor never shall, 
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror 
But when it first did help to wound itself. 
Come the three corners of the world in arms, 
And we shall shock them : nought shall make us rue, 
If England to itself do rest but trne. 
Richard II. Shakespeare. 



IV. IMAGINATION AND SCIENCE. 

Imagination is not a wild departure from truth. Truth is its 
material, its life and soul. It uses all the facts of science. Poetry 
in every age employs discoveries as the rounds of a ladder up 
which it climbs to a higher outlook upon the mystery of the uni- 
verse. No age has equalled our own in scientific investigations. 
These have furnished Tennyson with some of his greatest inspira- 
tions; and the deepest philosophical thought of our speculative 
age has been the theme of Browning. Bacon, the father of all 
modern science, was contemporaneous with Shakespeare. In our 
greatest era of poetry the foundations of science were laid. Poetry 
and science are not antagonistic. In fact, imagination is an agent 
in scientific investigation ; it is part of the initiatory step of the true 
scientific method. The scientific method begins with preliminary 
observation or formation of hypothesis; and to this succeeds experi- 
ment and observation, to prove or disprove this hypothesis ; then 
follows generalization. Thus imagination precedes and inspires 
scientific investigation, and true scientific attainment awakens a 
struggle for higher realization of the new truth. 

Imagination goes beyond science; it supplies what science lacks; 
it brings the facts discovered by science into living unity. 

As truth is not antagonistic to fact, so imagination is not antago- 
nistic to reason. Indeed, imagination gives careful observation, 
and is helpful to reception : as Wordsworth has said, " Poetry is 
the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge." 

Imagination has a sphere peculiarly her own. She refuses to be- 
come the handmaid or servant of any science, philosophy, creed, or 



44 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

view of life; and yet she sheds light on all. She does not supply 
or pervert facts, nor is she subservient to them. She unites facts, 
and discovers higher relations, beauties, and truths. She often 
points out the path where reason and experiment must walk, and 
always precedes rather than follows. She transcends external re- 
lations, but never warps or acts inconsistently with truth. 

In the following illustration, notice with what scientific accuracy 
Tennyson describes the coming on of night and the rising moon. 
Nor is the passage any less poetic for its scientific basis. 

Move eastward, happy Earth ! and leave 

Yon orange sunset waning slow : 
From fringes of the faded eve, 

happy planet ! eastward go ; 
Till over thy dark shoulder glow 

Thy silver sister-world, and rise 

To glass herself in dewy eyes 
That watch me from the glen below. 

In the same way, note the scientific facts hinted at in the next 
illustration from " In Memoriam." The ideas of Tennyson are 
here also scientifically accurate; he gives established facts, and 
the poetry is all the more sublime and imaginative from its 
truthfulness. 

Theke rolls the deep where grew the tree. 
Earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 
There where the long street roars, hath been 
The stillness of the central sea. 
The hills are shadows, and they flow 
From form to form, and nothing stands ; 
They melt like mist, the solid lands, 
Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 

Problem IX. State in plain prose the scientific facts referred to in one 
of the following poems ; then read the poem, and observe the uses made of such 
facts by the imagination. Are the facts perverted by being idealized, or only 
more intensely realized ? 

Roll on, and with thy rolling crust 

That round thy poles thou twirlest, 
Roll with thee, Earth! this grain of dust, 

As through the Vast thou whirlest : 



IMAGINATION AND SCIENCE. 45 

On, on through zones of dark and light 

Still waft me, blind and reeling, 
Around the Sun, and with his flight 

In wilder orbits wheeling. Tennyson, 



THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare ; 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl, — 

"Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil ! 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 

Child of the wandering sea, 

Cast from her lap forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is borne 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : 

Build thee more stately mansions, my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! 

0. W. Holmes. 



46 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 



THE RISING OF THE HILLS. 

Sinking, sinking, all the country slowly sank beneath the waves ; 
And the ocean swept the forests, reptiles, dragons, to their graves ; 
Afterwards with shells old Ocean all the conquered country paves, — 

Singing, " It is mine forever ! " — Not forever, not for long, 
For the subterranean forces laughed at Ocean's boastful song, 
Lifting up the sunken country, for their backs were broad and strong, 

Till the sea-shells were uplifted even to the mountain peak. 

Far below the waves are moaning, but with voices faint and weak, 

Sorrowing for their lost dominion and the toys they vainly seek. 



Hamertov. 



THE PETRIFIED FERN. 

In a valley, centuries ago, 

Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender, 
Veining delicate and fibres tender ; 

"Waving when the wind crept down so low. 

Bushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it, 
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it, 
Drops of dew stole in by night and crowned it, 
But no foot of man e'er trod that way : 
Earth was young, and keeping holiday. 

Monster fishes swam the silent main, 

Stately forests waved their giant branches, 
Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches, 

Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain : 
Nature revelled in grand mysteries. 
But the little fern was not of these, 
Did not number with the hills and trees ; 
Only grew and waved its wild sweet way, 
None ever came to note it day by day. 

Earth one time put on a frolic mood, 

Heaved the rocks, and changed the mighty motion 

Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean, 
Moved the plain and shook the haughty wood, 

Crushed the little fern in soft moist clay, — ■ 

Covered it, and hid it safe away. 

Oh, the long, long centuries since that day ! 

Oh, the agony ! Oh, life's bitter cost, 

Since that useless little fern was lost ! 



THE IDEAL AND THE REAL. 47 

Useless ? Lost ? There came a thoughtful man, 

Searching Nature's secrets, far and deep ; 

From a fissure in a rocky steep 
He withdrew a stone, o'er which there ran 

Fairy pencillings, a quaint design, — 

Veinings, leafage, fibres clear and fine, — 

And the fern's life lay in every line ! 

So, I think, God hides some souls away, 

Sweetly to surprise us, the last day. Mary Bolles Branch. 



V. THE IDEAL AND THE REAL. 

It is the usual opinion that the imagination is concerned with 
the ideal; that it creates the ideal. This is true; but this is only 
one function of the imagination. All great art is either a realiza- 
tion of the ideal , or an idealization of the real. In fact, it is 
usually both. 

When we look at the statue in the west pediment of the Par- 
thenon, representing the river Cephissos, we are tempted to call 
Phidias a realist. The cloth which hangs over the arm is ren- 
dered with literal accuracy; only a wet cloth could hang in this 
position. Yet Phidias is considered the idealist of the idealists. 

Ideal art does not mean that form of art which is above or con- 
trary to the facts of Nature, or even that which is obtained by a 
process of abstraction, but refers to an art product which is an em- 
bodiment of the conceptions of the human mind. That is to say, 
ideal art is a realization in natural form of an imaginative concep- 
tion. Phidias, therefore, was an idealist because he embodied a 
mental conception in a statue; the fact that he adopted literal 
details true to Nature did not make him a realist. 

Realism, on the contrary, is the idealization of the real. The 
imagination is perhaps as much concerned with realistic art as 
with idealistic art. Rembrandt had a positive imaginative 
delight in every wrinkle of the old faces whose portraits he has 
painted. Zorn can give imaginative feeling in the most simple 
and realistic touch. F. H. Tompkins shows imaginative delight 
in the simplest shadow. 



48 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

In fact, realism and idealism are two modes of artistic endeavor. 
Idealism begins with mental conception, and brings it into the 
realm of real objects, and makes that an object of sense which 
was only a dim dream. Eealism begins with the physical object, 
with the definite literal fact; brings imagination to bear upon 
it; paints the spirit beneath the surface, and so lifts it into the 
realm of poetry and of beautiful truth. In both the idealistic 
and the realistic processes a coloring is received from personality. 
Thus art in each case is " the intervention of personality." 

There may, therefore, be unimaginative realistic art. Where 
there is no intervention of personality* no " conforming of the 
shows of things to the desires and feelings of the mind, " all is a 
mere copy and reproduction of the literal object. But there may 
be also unimaginative idealism. The artist has merely reproduced 
conventional conceptions received from others. He may have 
even an original conception of the object, and paint it in an arti- 
ficial, conventional way with total absence of imagination. Some 
of the most conventional forms, some of the most academic pro- 
ducts of art students, are in the line of idealism. 

True art, or genuine work of the imagination, — whether it is 
the embodiment of the mental conceptions in objective form, or a 
truthful rendering of the simple facts of Nature, — is a union of 
something which belongs to the feeling heart with something 
which belongs to objective Nature. Coleridge once said of paint- 
ing, that it was something between a thought and a thing, " a 
union of that which is human with that which is natural." 

This principle applies also to poetry. Many poems are mere 
mental conceptions, and seem to have no correspondent existence 
in the actual world ; but they are embodied in conceivable forms, 
and are communicated from mind to mind by suggestion. Such 
poems are ideal. But there are also poems which deal faithfully 
and definitely with the simplest facts of Nature, with the simplest 
occurrences in human life. Here the imagination is none the less 
present, having lent its services to the idealization, to the giving 
of environment and atmosphere. 

Nothing is more important than to have an adequate conception 
of the wide range of imaginative action. Imagination is not the 



THE IDEAL AND THE REAL. 49 

slave of any theory of art; it is not subservient to any one age, class 
of men, or view of art. He who tries to decide upon the presence 
of imagination in any artistic production, on the basis of his own 
theory or definition of art, is very sure to make a mistake, since 
the appreciation of poetry and music demands the broadest sym- 
pathy. Imagination has been different in every age, and yet the 
same. It has aided not only the sublimest work, but has lent its 
charm to the simplest production of human hands. 

It must be recognized, in short, that no class of subjects, no 
class of human beings, no peculiar theory of art or poetry, has a 
monopoly of imagination. Anything may be made a subject of 
imaginative contemplation; anything may become poetic by being 
"intensely realized." 

Problem X. Read a passage describing some real object or scene, and 
also some passage involving the most ideal thought, and note the action of 
the imagination in each case, and express this as far as possible by the voice : 
in other words, idealize the real, and realize the ideal. 

ON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. 

Earth has not anything to show more fair : 

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 

A sight so touching in its majesty : 
This city now doth, like a garment, wear 
The beauty of the morning ; silent, bare, 

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 

Open unto the fields and to the sky, 
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 
Never did sun more beautifully steep 

In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill ; 
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep. 

The river glideth at his own sweet will. 

Dear God, the very houses seem asleep ; 

And all that mighty heart is lying still. 

Wordsworth. 



KUBLA KHAN. 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree, 
Where. Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 
Down to a sunless sea. 
3 



50 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

So twice five miles of fertile ground 

With walls and towers were girdled round : 

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills 

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ; 

And here were forests ancient as the hills, 

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted 

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! 

A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 

By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 

A mighty fountain momently was forced, 

Amid whose swift, half-intermitted burst 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail ; 

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 

It flung up momently the sacred river. 

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 

Then reached the caverns measureless to man, 

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean ; 

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

Ancestral voices prophesying war ! 

The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

Floated midway on the waves, 
Where was heard the mingled measure 
From the fountain and the caves. 
It was a miracle of rare device, 
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! 
A damsel with a dulcimer 
In a vision once I saw : 
It was an Abyssinian maid, 
And on her dulcimer she played, 

Singing of Mount Abora. 
Could I revive within me 

Her symphony and song, 
To such a deep delight 't would win me, 
That with music loud and long 
I would build that dome in air, — 

That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! 
And all who heard should see them there, 



THE IDEAL AND THE REAL. 51 

And all should cry, Beware ! beware! 
His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 

Weave a circle round him thrice, 
And close your eyes with holy dread, 
For he on honey-dew hath fed, 

And drunk the milk of Paradise. Coleridge. 



FROM POESY. 

She doth tell me where to borrow 

Comfort in the midst of sorrow ; 

Makes the desolatest place 

To her presence be a grace, 

And the blackest discontents 

Be her fairest ornaments. 

In my former days of bliss 

Her divine skill taught me this : 

That from everything I saw 

I could some invention draw, 

And raise pleasure to her height 

By the meanest object's sight, — 

By the murmur of a spring, 

Or the least bough's rustling, 

Or a daisy whose leaves spread, 

Shut when Titan goes to bed, 

Or a shady bush or tree. 

She could more infjise in me 

Than all Nature's beauties can 

In some other wiser man ; 

By her help I also now 

Make this churlish place allow 

Some things that may sweeten gladness 

In the very gall of sadness. 

The dull lowness, the black shade, 

That these hanging vaults have made ; 

The strange music of the waves 

Beating on these hollow caves ; 

This black den which rooks emboss, 

Overgrown with eldest moss ; 

The rude portals that give light 

More to Terror than Delight ; 

This my chamber of Neglect, 

"Walled about with Disrespect,— 



52 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

From all these, and this dull air, 
A fit object for Despair, 
She hath taught me by her might 
To draw comfort and delight. 
Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, 
I will cherish thee for this. 
Poesy, thou sweet'st content 
That e'er Heaven to mortals lent, 
Though they as a trifle leave thee, 
Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee, 
Thou then be to them a scorn, 
That to naught but earth are born, — 
Let my life no longer be 
Than I am in love with thee. 
Written in Marshalsea Prison. George Wither. 



VI. IMAGINATION AND FANCY. 

The harmonious nave of the cathedral fell asleep, with its arms extended 
in the shape of a cross. Louis Bertrand. 

" She comes like the husht beauty of the night, 
But sees too deep for laughter ; 
Her touch is a vibration and a light 
From worlds before and after." 

One important function of the imagination is to retain the 
attention in the study of the simplest objects or events. It can 
not only penetrate to the depth, but contemplate the simplest 
aspects of Nature and life. In its workings we often find a con- 
scious or unconscious comparison. There is an unconscious union 
of conceptions which are remotely separated; but all differences 
are brought into a harmonious union. 

All actions of the imagination are complex; it unites the most 
diverse ideas; it harmonizes antithetic conceptions; it reconciles 
opposites, and produces a living, organic unity. 

One definition of beauty is " unity in the midst of variety." It 
is the function of the imagination to discover this unity. It can 
hold many conceptions simultaneously, and unite them by dis- 
covering a central idea. 



IMAGINATION AND FANCY. 53 

The combination or comparison of* complex conceptions must 
be immediate and spontaneous, or the result will be the action 
of fancy, if not of a still lower mental power. The contempla- 
tion, too, must be simple and sincere, if not unconscious. Where 
the comparison is conscious, the process is more the work of 
fancy; but where contemplation is concentrated at the, heart of 
the object, the union of complex conceptions natural and spon- 
taneous, the relation sincere and sympathetic, then imagination 
is dominant. 

Imagination is often confounded with fancy. To distinguish 
between them is one of the most helpful means of appreciating 
the highest action of the imagination. 

Fancy has more to do with the playful comparison of objects, 
with apparent or superficial relation, with the discovery of odd 
images and illustrations. It is wilder and more extravagant. 
Imagination deals with the essential nature of objects; fancy, 
with curious and unexpected resemblances. Imagination is the 
source of sympathy and insight, and is therefore far more inti- 
mately related to feeling than fancy. Fancy is playful and mis- 
chievous ; it is not the result of a serious mood of mind and heart. 
Imagination, on the contrary, sees to the depth of things; it is 
serious, sincere, and truthful. Fancy is often exaggerated and 
untruthful; it imitates and mocks. Imagination sees things in 
relation to the heart; it touches the deepest chords of feeling; 
it is the one faculty which sees the life of things. Without 
imagination the human soul is imprisoned in a narrow cell, the 
mind has but one point of view, — never sees with other eyes, 
catches no gleam of the eternal morning, feels no future in the 
present. 

The , difference between fancy and imagination can be better 
illustrated than defined. Let us take two extracts from Shelley. 
His poem upon " The Cloud " is popular. It is easy for the 
mind to carry on its playful and beautiful comparison : — 

I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under ; 
• And t%tn again I dissolve it in rain, 
And laugh as I pass in thunder. 



54 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 

And his burning plumes outspread, 
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack 

When the morning star shines dead ; 
As on the jag of a mountain crag 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 
An eagle alit one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings. 
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 

Its ardors of rest and of love, 
And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of heaven above, 
With wings folded I rest on my airy nest, 

As still as a brooding dove. 

The variety of images in this poem is often mistaken for imag- 
ination. But it is not highly imaginative; the heart is not 
touched; there is no deep insight into the beauty of the cloud and 
its relations to the Infinite, or to the soul of man. Hence, it is one 
of the weakest of Shelley's poems. 

There is more imagination in the following four lines from 
" Prometheus Unbound " than in the whole poem of " The 
Cloud ; " more insight, more suggestion of feeling, more realiza- 
tion of the truth of Nature. The subject is the same, but much 
more simply, sincerely, and sympathetically treated. The mind 
identifies human experience with Nature, but there is no external 
comparison. 

We wander'd underneath the young gray dawn, 
And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds 
Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains, 
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind. 

Contrast also with " The Cloud " — his masterpiece, if not the 
greatest masterpiece of lyric poetry — the " Prometheus Un- 
bound." This poem is not popular; unfortunately, it is rarely 
read, even by professed lovers of poetry. It demands the highest 
activity of the imagination for its comprehension. There is little 
of fancy, but much of imagination. It is not merely a differ- 
ence of subject, but a difference of insight, a difference of ideal 
exaltation. 



IMAGINATION AND FANCY. 55 

Take, for example, the scene where the spirits speak to Prome- 
theus; that is, where are represented the arts that minister to the 
human mind; or this where Panthea and Asia, commonly under- 
stood in the language of prose to be Faith and Love, make their 
journey to the far-off cave of Demogorgon, — a journey which sug- 
gests the long struggles and progress of the human race through the 
different ages of gloom to the far-off realization of its ideal. Dur- 
ing this journey, delicate voices or echoes ever call them onward 
and upward, inspiring them with patience and perseverance. 

THE JOURNEY OF FAITH AND LOVE. 

Morning. A lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. 

Asia (alone). From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended: 
Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes 
Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, 
And beatings haunt the desolated heart, 
Which should have learnt repose : thou hast descended 
Cradled in tempests ; thou dost wake, Spring ! 
A child of many winds ! As suddenly 
Thou comest as the memory of a dream, 
Which now is sad because it hath been sweet. 
This is the season, this the day, the hour ; 
At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine, 
Too long desired, too long delaying, come ! 
How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl ! 
The point of one white star is quivering still 
Deep in the orange light of widening morn 
Beyond the purple mountains : through a chasm 
Of wind-divided mist the darker lake 
Eefiects it : now it wanes ; it gleams again 
As the waves fade, and as the burning threads 
Of woven cloud unravel in the pale air : 
'T is lost ! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow 
The roseate sunlight quivers : hear I not 
The iEolian music of her sea-green plumes 
Winnowing the crimson dawn ? 

( To Panthea entering.) I feel, I see 

Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears, 
Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew. 
Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest ( 
The shadow of that soul by which I live, 



56 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

How late thou art ! the sphered sun had climbed 
The sea ; my heart was sick with hope, before 
The printless air felt thy belated plumes. 

Pan. Pardon, great sister ! but my wings were faint 
With the delight of a remembered dream, 
As are the noontide plumes of summer winds 
Satiate with sweet flowers. 

Asia. Lift up thine eyes, 

And let me read thy dream. 

Pan. As I have said, 

With our sea-sister at his feet I slept. 
The mountain mists, condensing at our voice 
Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes, 
From the keen ice shielding our linked sleep. 
Then two dreams came. One I remember not ; 
But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs 
Fell from Prometheus, and the azure night 
Grew radiant with the glory of that form 
Which lives unchanged withiu, and his voice fell 
Like music which makes giddy the dim brain, 
Faint with intoxication of keen joy : 
" Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world 
With loveliness, — more fair than aught but her 
Whose shadow thou art, — lift thine eyes on me." 
I lifted them : the overpowering light 
Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er 
By love, which, from his soft and flowing limbs, 
And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes, 
Steamed forth like vaporous fire, — an atmosphere 
Which wrapt me in its all-dissolving power, 
As the warm ether of the morning sun 
Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew. 

Asia. Thou speakest, but thy words 

Are as the air : I feel them not : oh, lift 
Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul ! 

Pan. I lift them, though they droop beneath the load 
Of that they would express : what canst thou see 
But thine own fairest shadow imaged there ? 

Asia. Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven 
Contracted to two circles underneath 
Their long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless, 
Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven. 

Pan. Why lookest thou as if a spirit past ? 

Asia. There is a change ; beyond their inmost depth 



IMAGINATION AND FANCY. 57 

I see a shade, a shape : 't is he, arrayed 

In the soft light of his own smiles, which spread 

Like radiance from the cloud -surrounded morn. 

Prometheus, it is thine ! depart not yet ! 

Say not those smiles that we shall meet again 

Within that bright pavilion which their beams 

Shall build on the waste world ? The dream is told. 

What shape is that between us ? Its rude hair 

Roughens the wind that lifts it ; its regard 

Is wild and quick, yet 't is a thing of air, 

For through its grey robe gleams the golden dew 

Whose stars the noon has quenched not. 

Dream. Follow ! Follow ! 

Pan. It is mine other dream. 

Asia. It disappears. 

Pan. It passes now into my mind. Methought, 
As we sate here, the flower-enfolding buds 
Burst on yon lightning-blasted almond-tree, 
When swift from the white Scythian wilderness 
A wind swept forth wrinkling the earth with frost : 
I looked, and all the blossoms were blown down ; 
But on each leaf was stamped, as the blue-bells 
Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief, 
Oh, follow, follow ! 

Asia. As you speak, your words 

Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep 
With shapes. Methought among the lawns together 
We wandered, underneath the young grey dawn, 
And multitudes of dense, white, fleecy clouds 
Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains 
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind ; 
And the white dew on the new-bladed grass, 
Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently ; 
And there was more which I remember not ; 
But on the shadows of the morning clouds, 
Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written 
Follow, oh, follow ! As they vanished by, 
And on each herb from which heaven's dew had fallen 
The like was stamped, as with a withering fire, 
A wind arose among the pines ; it shook 
The clinging music from their boughs, and then 
Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts, 
Were heard : Oh, follow, follow, follow me ! 
And then I said, "Panthea, look on me." 



58 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

But in the depth of those beloved eyes 
Still I saw, follow, follow ! 
Echo. Follow ! Follow ! 

Pan. The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voices 
As they were spirit-tongued. 

Asia. It is some being 

Around the crags. What fine clear sounds ! Oh, list ! 
Echoes (unseen). Echoes we : listen ! 
We cannot stay : 
As dew-stars glisten, 
Then fade away — 
Child of Ocean ! 
Asia. Hark ! Spirits speak. The liquid responses 
Of their aerial tongues yet sound. 
Pan. I hear. 

Echoes. Oh, follow, follow, 

As our voice recedeth 
Through the caverns hollow, 

Where the forest spreadeth ; (More distant.) 
Oh, follow, follow ! 
Through the caverns hollow, 
As the song floats thou pursue 
Where the wild bee never flew, 
Through the noontide darkness deep, 
By the odour-breathing sleep 
Of faint night-flowers, and the waves 
At the fountain -lighted caves. 
While our music, wild and sweet, 
Mocks thy gently- falling feet, 
Child of Ocean ! 
Asia. Shall we pursue the sound ? It grows more faint 
And distant. 

Pan. List ! the strain floats nearer now. 

Echoes. In the world unknown 

Sleeps a voice unspoken ; 
By thy step alone 

Can its rest be broken, 
Child of Ocean ! 
Asia. How the notes sink upon the ebbing wind ! 
Echoes. Oh, follow, follow ! 

Through the caverns hollow ; 
As the song floats thou pursue, 
By the woodland noontide dew ; 
By the forests, lakes, and fountains, 



IMAGINATION AND FANCY. 59 

Through the many-folded mountains ; 

To the rents and gulfs and chasms, 

Where the earth reposed from spasms, 

On the day when he and thou 

Parted, to commingle now, 

Child of Ocean ! 

Asia. Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine, 

And follow, ere the voices fade away. 

Shelley. 

One of the first to make a distinction between fancy and imagi- 
nation was Wordsworth, in one of his famous prefaces to his 
poems. No better words can be found to explain their differences 
than a few sentences from this famous Essay : " Fancy, " he says, 
" does- not require that the materials which she makes use of should 
be susceptible of change in their constitution from her touch ; and, 
where they admit of modification, it is enough for her purpose 
if it be slight, limited, and evanescent. Directly the reverse of 
these are the desires and demands of the Imagination. She recoils 
from everything but the plastic, the pliant, and the indefinite. 
When the Imagination frames a comparison, if it does not strike 
on the first presentation, a sense of the truth of the likeness, from 
the moment that is perceived, grows, and continues to grow, 
upon the mind, — the resemblance depending less upon outline of 
form and feature than upon expression and effect; less upon casual 
and outstanding than upon inherent and internal properties : more- 
over, the images invariably modify each other. The law under 
which the processes of Fancy are carried on is as capricious as the 
accidents of things ; and the effects are surprising, playful, ludicrous, 
amusing, tender, or pathetic, as the objects happen to be appositely 
produced or fortunately combined. Fancy depends upon the 
rapidity and profusion with which she scatters her thoughts and 
images; trusting that their number, and the felicity with which 
they are linked together, will make amends for the want of indi- 
vidual value : or she prides herself upon the curious subtilty and 
the successful elaboration with which she can detect their lurking 
affinities. If she can win you over to her purpose^ and impart to 
you her feelings, she cares not how unstable or transitory may be 
her influence, knowing that it will not be out of her power to 



60 IMAGINATION AND DRAMANIC INSTINCT. 

resume it upon an apt occasion. But the Imagination is conscious 
of an indestructible dominion: the Soul may fall away from it, 
not being able to sustain its grandeur; but if once felt and acknowl- 
edged, by no act of any other faculty of the mind can it be relaxed, 
impaired, or diminished. Fancy is given to quicken and to beguile 
the temporal part of our nature, Imagination to incite and to sup- 
port the eternal. " 

Another writer who has done much to awaken a true apprecia- 
tion of the. exalted function of imagination as distinguished from 
fancy is Buskin. The student cannot do better than to take a few 
of his illustrations and test them by vocal expression. 

" Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky 
And fan our people cold." 

"Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, — fair as the moon, clear 
as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners ? " 

Of the first of these extracts, Ruskin says : " The outward 
shiver and coldness of fear is seized on, and irregularly but admir- 
ably attributed by the fancy to the drift of the banners." Of the 
second : " The imagination stays not at the outside, but dwells on 
the fearful emotion itself." 

A nun demure of lowly port ; or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, in thy 
simplicity the sport of all temptations ; a queen in crown of rubles drest ; a 
starveling in a scanty vest, — are all, as seems to suit thee best, thy appel- 
lations. 

A little cyclops, with one eye staring to threaten and defy, — that thought 
comes next ; and instantly the freak is over, the shape will vanish — and 
behold a silver shield with boss of gold, that spreads itself, some faery bold in 
fight to cover. 

I see thee glittering from afar — and then thou art a pretty star ; not quite 
so fair as many are in heaven above thee ! Yet like a star, with glittering 
crest, self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest : may peace come never to his 
nest, who shall reprove thee ! 

Bright Flower ! for by that name at last, when all my reveries are past, I 
call thee, — and to that cleave fast, sweet silent creature ! that breath'st with 
me in sun and air, do thou, as thou art wont, repair my heart with gladness 
and a share of thy meek nature ! 

From " To a Daisy" Wordsworth. 



IMAGINATION AND FANCY. 



61 



Which stanza here is the most imaginative 1 Euskin says : 
" Observe how spiritual, yet how wandering and playful the fancy 
is in the first stanzas, and how far she flies from the matter in 
hand, never stopping to brood on the character of any one of the 
images she summons, and yet for a moment truly seeing and be- 
lieving in them all ; while in the last stanza the imagination returns 
with its deep feeling to the heart of the flower and ' cleaves fast ' 
to that." There is more imagination in the last, because it is more 
simple, more genuine, truer to human experience, and centres the 
mind's attention, as the imagination always does, at the heart of 
things. 

Bring the rathe primrose, that forsaken dies ; (Imag.) 

The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine, (Nugatory.) 

The white pink and the pansy freaked with, jet, (Fancy.) 

The glowing violet, (Imag.) 

The musk-rose and the well-attired woodbine, (Fancy, vulgar. ) 
With cowslips wan, that hang the pensive head, (Imag.)' 

And every flower that sad embroidery wears. (Mixed.) 

Milton. 



O, Proserpina, 
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall 
From Dis's wagon : Daffodils 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty. Violets, dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses 
That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady 
Most incident to maids. 



Shakespeare. 



Euskin contrasts -these extracts from Milton and Shakespeare. 
" Observe, " he says, " how the imagination in these last lines goes 
into the very inmost soul of every flower, after having touched 
them all at first with that heavenly timidness, the shadow of 
Proserpine's, and gilded them with celestial gathering, and never 
stops on their spots or their bodily shape ; while Milton sticks in 
the stains upon them, and puts us off with that unhappy freak of 
jet in the very flower that without this bit of paper-staining would 



62 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

have been the most precious to us of all. ' There is pansies, that 's 
for thoughts.'" 

While the imagination is superior to fancy, it must be borne in 
mind that fancy is not to be despised. It has a high and impor- 
tant function, though one distinct from imagination. The true 
office of each of these is best illustrated by Shakespeare. He 
gives the greatest variety, as well as the highest action, of both of 
these faculties. 

Problem XI. Contrast the play of fancy with imagination ; note the 
difference in mental action, and in the effect upon the voice. 

0, then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you. 

She is the fairy midwife ; and she comes 

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone 

On the fore-finger of an alderman, 

Drawn with a team of little atomies 

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep. 

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, 

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, 

Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers : 

Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner's legs ; 

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers ; 

The traces, of the smallest spider's web ; 

The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams ; 

Her whip, of cricket's bone ; the lash, of film ; 

Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat. 

And in this state, she gallops night by night 

Though lovers' brains, and then they dream of love ; 

O'er courtiers knees, that dream on curtsies straight ; 

O'er lawyers' ringers, who straight dream on fees ; 

O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream : 

Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, 

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit ; 

And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail 

Tickling a parson's nose that lies asleep, 

Then dreams he of another benefice : 

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, 

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, \ 

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, 

Of healths five-fathom deep ; and then anon 

Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes ; 

And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, 

And sleeps again. Shakespeare. 



IMAGINATION AND FANCY. 



63 



When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 

I summon up remembrance of things past, 

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste ; 

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, 

And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe, 

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight. 

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 

The sad account fore-bemoaned moan, 

Which I new pay as if not paid before : 

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, 

All losses are restored, and sorrows end. 



By wells and rills, in medowes greene, 
We nightly sing our heydey guise ; 
And to our fairy king and queene 
We chant our moonlight minstrelsies : 
When larks 'gan sing, away we fling ; 
And babes new-borne steal as we go, 
And elfe in bed we leave instead, 
And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho ! 



There is an eminence of these our hills, 
The last that parleys with the setting sun. 



Shakespeare. 



Wordsworth. 



AMONG THE ROCKS. 

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old Earth, 
This autumn morning ! How he sets his bones 

To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet 

For the ripple to run over in its mirth ; 
Listening the while, where on the heap of stones 

The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet ! 

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true ; 

Such is life's trial, as old Earth smiles and knows. 
If you loved only what were worth your love, 
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you : 

Make the low nature better by your throes ! 
Give Earth yourself, go up for gain above ! 



Browning. 



64 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

There 's one great bunch of stars in heaven 

That shines so sturdily, 
Where good Saint Peter's sinewy hand 

Holds up the dull gold-wroughten key. 

And also there 's a little star 

So white, a virgin's it must be, — 

Perhaps the lamp my love in heaven 
Hangs out to light the way for me. 



Theophile Marzials. 



NIGHT AND MORNING. 



Low hanging in a cloud of burnished gold, 

The sleepy sun lay dreaming ; 
And where, pearl- wrought, the Orient gates unfold, 

Wide ocean realms were gleaming. 
Within the night he rose and stole away, 

And, like a gem adorning, 

Blazed o'er the sea upon the breast of day, — 

And everywhere was morning. 

Eugene Field. 



Vn. ACTIONS OF THE IMAGINATION. 

The Poet should communicate an Infinitude to his delineation. By in- 
tensity of conception, by that gift of transcendental Thought which is fitly 
named genius and inspiration, he should inform the Finite with a certain 
Infinitude of significance; or, as they sometimes say, ennoble the Actual 
into Idealness. Carlyle. 

The outward shows of sky and earth, 
Of hill and valley, he has viewed ; 
And impulses of deeper birth 
Have come to him in solitude. 

In common things that round us lie 

Some random truths he can impart, — 

The harvest of a quiet eye 

That broods and sleeps on his own heart. 

Wordsworth. 

The most diverse opinions are held regarding the imagination. 
One of the latest theories is that there is no such faculty, but 
that the human mind is full of "imaginations." According to 
this view, the imagination is simply a general word for perceptive 



ACTIONS OF THE IMAGINATION. 65 

action. Another theory is that the imagination is not a separate 
faculty, but is the spontaneous and harmonious union of all the 
faculties and powers of the mind acting together contemplatively 
or creatively. 

Theories, however, are of little value in comparison with the 
direct study of the action and products of the faculty itself. 
What are some of the simplest and most elemental actions of the 
imagination? 

Imagination can unite a general idea to an individual conception. 
According to logic, a general idea has greater " extension, " and an 
individual idea greater intension. The word tree, for example, 
covers far more objects than oak. There is a less number of 
marks characteristic of the conception awakened in the mind by 
the word tree, and a greater number by the word oak. Extension 
and intension are thus in direct opposition. Now, observe the 
imagination: — 

They lay along the battery's side, 

Below the smoking cannon ; 
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde, 
And from the banks of Shannon. 
Song of the Camp. Bayard Taylor. 

The thought expressed in plain prose in these lines is simply 
that there lay on the battle-field soldiers from England, Scotland, 
and Ireland; but this general thought is stated imaginatively. 
The poet names or suggests each place by a characteristic 
which awakens a vivid picture and sympathetic feeling. He 
does not suggest a map of the regions, but brings before us 
three rivers. " Brave hearts" names not only soldiers, but sug- 
gests also the thought which he wishes to emphasize in his 
poem. Thus he leads us to realize that the soldiers are living 
men, with homes and affections. The picture of the river is in 
the foreground of each conception, while the general thought 
of the country is in the background. The truth is stated not 
only clearly and adequately, but with far greater force. It 
brings mutual facts into the realm of feeling; it makes every- 
thing living and human. 

4 



66 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Logic and reason secure a universal by eliminating the specific 
and concrete marks; the result is an abstraction. But the 
imagination secures a universal in exactly the opposite way. It 
penetrates beneath the accidents, and fixes the attention upon 
the essential elements; and by vivid realization and by getting 
at the heart of objects, or the distinct character of a scene, it 
chooses such an expression that a specific and concrete fact 
becomes a suggestion of a universal truth. It unites a specific 
and definite image with all the marks of intension, and gives it 
in such a way as to suggest extension. The imagination is thus 
a power that can unite intension and extension in conception; 
and this explains, partly at least, why reason and imagination, 
poetry and science, are so antithetic to each other. 

The imagination realizes ideas. It translates abstractions 
into more conceivable forms. Out of vague and chaotic ideas, 
it creates an organic unity; out of the dryest abstractions, it 
makes vivid pictures. It brings the coldest conceptions of the 
intellect into sympathy with the heart; it turns dry facts into 
living truth. It sees the life in all the operations of Nature, 
and creates a new world. 

L'ESPERANCE. 

Only a brave old maple, 

Shorn of its scarlet and gold, 
And traced in the scroll of sunset 

As a handwriting — black and bold. 

A low, wailing wind frets the branches, 

The dead leaves start up in surprise, 
Till, in the hush of the gloaming, 

The dryad's sad monody dies. 

desolate tree in the meadow, 

With pleading hands stretched to the sky ! 

Do you know the glad hopes of the springtide 
Asleep in your folded arms lie ? 

And never a breath of the storm -king, 

And never a waft of the snow, 
Can snatch the frail bud from its casket, 

Or loose the firm anchor below ? 



ACTIONS OF THE IMAGINATION. 67 

'Bide patiently, then, the bleak winter, 

And change the sad wail to a song : 

Bear up, for the robins and bluebirds 

And south winds are corning ere long. 

Anon. 

Again, the imagination elevates or idealizes the simplest objects, 
scenes, or events. " The ideal, " says Charles Blanc, " is the primi- 
tive divine exemplar of all things; it is, so to speak, a reminis- 
cence of having already witnessed perfection, and the hope of 
seeing it once again. " This is but one of the many echoes of the 
greatest of all definitions of the ideal. " It is, " says Plato, " a 
recollection of those things our soul formerly beheld when in com- 
pany with God, despising the things that we now say are, and 
looking upward towards that which really is. " 

Bacon expresses what is perhaps the most prevalent modern view 
regarding the idealizing action of the mind. " Poetry, " says he, 
" has something divine in it, because it raises the mind and hurries 
it into sublimity by conforming the shows of things to the desires 
of the soul, instead of subjecting the soul to external things, as 
reason and history do." 

What more simple and more familiar experience than falling 
asleep! To many it is in the highest degree commonplace, but 
notice how the imagination may lift it into the realm of interest 
and beauty : — 

Soon trembling in her soft and chilly nest, 
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay, 
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd 
Her smoothed limbs, and soul, fatigued away, 
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow day ; 
Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain ; 
Clasp'd like a missal, where swart Paynims pray ; 
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, 
As though a rose should shut and be a bud again. 
Eve of St. Agnes. Keats. 

Every one will speak of the silent sky and the lonely hills, but 
notice how the imagination of the poet seizes the characteristic 
which, brings these two objects of human attention together, 



68 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

creating in the mind a perfect picture and awakening noble 
feeling with the simplest words. We can read the following lines 
so as to make them seem commonplace and lacking in poetry; 
but when we give up our imagination to the suggestions of the 
author, we realize how superficial was our first impression : — 

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie ; 
His daily teachers had been woods and rills, 
The silence that is in the starry sky, 
The sleep that is among the lonely hills. 
Brougham Castle. Wordsworth. 

Imagination, as already implied, penetrates to the depth ; it does 
not deal in external accidents and mechanical relations, but sees 
the heart of the object, or its relations, act, or character; it finds 
the elements and the cause in everything which it touches, and 
goes to the true fountain-head of expression. Witness in this 
extract how forcible simple ideas and simple words may become : 

Weariness 
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth 
Finds the down-pillow hard. 
Cymbeline. Shakespeare. 

Here Shakespeare does not say sleeps soundly, peacefully slum- 
bers, or rests in repose ; he uses only one word, but it is the one 
word that can give the most definite impression. He does not say 
hardest bed, nor floor, nor ground, nor even stone, but " flint ; " 
and then he contrasts with this, not bed, but something more spe- 
cific, a " down-pillow. " Thus the imagination reaches to that 
which is most simple and fundamental. It gives the one object 
and finds the one word which will suggest by one image, without 
detail, the deepest idea and most definite contrast. 

Before the dawn, comes the marginal minute of the dark, when the 
grove is still mute, save for one prophetic bird, who sings with a clear- 
voiced conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, — the 
rest preserving silence, as if equally convinced that he is mistaken. 

Thomas Hardy. 



ACTIONS OF THE IMAGINATION. 69 

Plain prose will tell us that a guitar is made of wood, and the 
ordinary mind will go no further than to look simply at the acci- 
dentals, and perhaps wonder at the texture of the wood and its 
resonance. Now listen to Shelley. He sent this poem, with an 
instrument, as a present, to Mrs. Williams. Here is the very 
soul of music. All the history, the breezes, and the storms which 
have passed over the tree are imprisoned in the wood, and can 
only be set free by the master hand : — 

TO A LADY, WITH A GUITAR. 

Ariel to Miranda : — Take 

This slave of music, for the sake 

Of him who is the slave of thee ; 

And teach it all the harmony 

In which thou canst, and only thou, 

Make the delighted spirit glow, 

Till joy denies itself again, 

And, too intense, is turn'd to pain. 

For by permission and command 

Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 

Poor Ariel sends this silent token 

Of more than ever can be spoken : 

Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who 

From life to life must still pursue 

Your happiness, for thus alone 

Can Ariel ever find his own ; 

From Prospero's enchanted cell, 

As the mighty verses tell, 

To the throne of Naples he 

Lit you o'er the trackless sea, 

Flitting on, your prow before, 

Like a living meteor. 

"When you die, the silent Moon 

In her interlunar swoon 

Is not sadder in her cell 

Than deserted Ariel ; 

When you live again on earth, 

Like an unseen Star of birth 

Ariel guides you o'er the sea 

Of life from your nativity. 

Many changes have been run 

Since Ferdinand and you begun 



70 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Your course of love, and Ariel still 

Has track'd your steps and served your wilL 

Now in humbler, happier lot 

This is all remember'd not ; 

And now, alas ! the poor sprite is 

Imprison'd for some fault of his, 

In a body like a grave — 

From you he only dares to crave 

For his service and his sorrow 

A smile to-day, a song to-morrow. 

The artist who this idol wrought 

To echo all harmonious thought, 

Fell'd a tree, while on the steep 

The woods were in their winter sleep, 

Eock'd in that repose divine 

On the wind-swept Apennine ; 

And dreaming, some of autumn past, 

And some of spring approaching fast, 

And some of April buds and showers, 

And some of songs in July bowers, 

And all of love ; and so this tree — 

Oh that such our death may be ! — 

Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 

To live in happier form again : 

From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star, 

The artist wrought this loved Guitar ; 

And taught it justly to reply 

To all who question skilfully 

In language gentle as thine own ; 

Whispering in enamour'd tone 

Sweet oracles of woods and dells, 

And summer winds in sylvan cells : 

For it had learnt all harmonies 

Of the plains and of the skies, 

Of the forests and the mountains, 

And the many-voiced fountains, 

The clearest echoes of the hills, 

The softest notes of falling rills, 

The melodies of birds and bees, 

The murmuring of summer seas, 

And pattering rain and breathing dew, 

And airs of evening ; and it knew 

That seldom-heard mysterious sound 



ACTIONS OF THE IMAGINATION. 71 

"Which, driven on its diurnal round, 

As it floats through boundless day, 

Our world enkindles on its way : 

All this it knows, but will not tell 

To those who cannot question well 

The spirit that inhabits it ; 

It talks according to the wit 

Of its companions ; and no more 

Is heard than has been felt before 

By those who tempt it to betray 

These secrets of an elder day. 

But, sweetly as it answers will 

Flatter hands of perfect skill, 

It keeps its highest holiest tone 

For our beloved Friend alone. Shelley. 

Thus the imagination sees, contemplates, and creates such an 
individual conception that it can stand for a most general truth. 
It idealizes, it gives life and feeling to every object. It com- 
pares the unknown with the known ; makes the seen a window 
through which the mind beholds the unseen. It surrounds or 
environs ; it shows the kinship of things; it paints a picture 
which blends harmoniously into one vision; it makes the desert 
a dwelling-place; it fathoms the life of the universe, and enters 
the most secret chambers of the human soul. 

Problem XII. Read a variety of passages, and exercise the many 
diverse actions of the imagination. 

The mountains rose, — the valleys sank 

Unto the place which thou hadst founded for them. 



The moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare. 



Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn. 



Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of eternity. 



The bees are stirring — birds are on the wing — 
And Winter, slumbering in the open air, 

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring ! 



Shelley. 



Coleridge. 



72 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The stars of midnight shall be dear 

To her ; and she shall lean her ear 

In many a secret place 

Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 

And beauty born of murmuring sound 

Shall pass into her face. 



. . . Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, 
And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong. 

The winds come to me from the fields of sleep. 



There is a budding morrow in midnight. 



Wordsworth. 



Keats. 



This is the very heart of the woods all round 
Mountain-like heaped above us ; yet even here 
One pond of water gleams ; far off the river 
Sweeps like a sea, barred out from land ; but one, 
One thin, clear sheet has over-leaped and wound 
Into this silent depth, which gained, it lies 
Still, as but let by sufferance ; the trees bend 
O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl. 



Browning. 



THE LOST CHURCH. 

Oft in the forest far one hears 

A passing sound of distant bells ; 
Nor legends old nor human wit 

Can tell us whence the music swells. 
From the Lost Church, 't is thought, that soft 

Faint ringing cometh on the wind ; 
Once many pilgrims trod the path, 

But no one now the way can find. 

Not long since, deep into the wood 

I stray 'd, where path was none to see : 
"Weary of human wickedness, 

My heart to God yearn'd longingly. 
There, through the silent wilderness, 

Again I heard the sweet bells stealing, 
Ever, as higher yearn'd my heart, 

The nearer and the louder pealing. 



ACTIONS OF THE IMAGINATION.- 73 

My spirit was so self-indrawn, 

My sense with sweetness rapt so high, 
That how those sounds within me wrought 

Remaineth yet a mystery. 
It seem'd as if a hundred years 

Had laps'd while thus I had been dreaming, 
When, lo ! above the clouds a space 

Free opened out, in sunshine gleaming. 

The heaven was so darkly blue, 

The sun so full and glowing bright — 
And rose a minster's stately pile, 

Expanding in the golden light. 
Seemed the clouds resplendently, 

Like wings, to bear it up alway, 
And in the blessed depths of heaven 

Its spired tower to melt away. 

The bells' delicious harmony 

Down from the tower in quiverings flow'd, 
Yet drew not hand of man the strings, — 

They moved but to the Breath of God. 
As if upon my throbbing heart 

That self-same Breath its influence shed, 
So entered I that minster high 

"With timorous joy and faltering tread. 

Words cannot paint what there-within 

Awoke my spirit's ecstasies ; 
The darkly-brilliant windows glow'd 

With martyrs' pious effigies ; 
Into a new and living world, 

Rich imag'd forth, I gaz'd abroad, — 
A world of holy women and 

Of warriors of the host of God. 

Down at the altar low I knelt, 

Thrilling with awe and holy love — 
Heaven and its glorious mysteries 

Were pictur'd on the vault above. 
But when again I looked up, 

Roof, arch, and pictur'd vault were gone — 
Full opened was the door of heaven, 

And every veil had been withdrawn. 



74 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

What then, in silent prayerful awe, 

Of majesty I saw reveal'd, 
What heard of sound more blissful far 

Than aught to human ear unseal'd, 
Lies not within the might of words ; 

Yet whoso longeth for such good, 
Let him take heed unto the hells 

That ring in whispers through the wood. 



Uhland. 



VIII. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE IMAGINATION. 

The most imaginative poem may be turned into commonplace 
prose if read without a proper realization of its spirit. The 
imagination does not act mechanically or by artificial analysis. It 
is synthetic, natural, and simple. No rules can be framed to 
interpret poetry, or to understand its nature, without proper im- 
aginative and emotional exercise. Imagination appeals to imagi- 
nation, and can be interpreted only by imagination. It acts by 
intuition and intensity of gaze, not by reasoning. It gives a more 
essential truth than can be seized by the eye. It does not accumu- 
late accidents or multiply details, but penetrates immediately to 
the life and soul. 

. . . Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, 
Most musical, most melancholy ! * 
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among 
I woo, to hear thy even-song ; 
And missing thee, I walk unseen 
On the dry, smooth-shaven green, 
To behold the wandering Moon 
Riding near her highest noon, 
Like one that had been led astray 
Through the heaven's wide, pathless way, 
And oft, as if her head she bow'd, 
Stooping through a fleecy cloud. 
H Penseroso. Milton. 

Here we perceive no process of reasoning about the moon being 
lost in heaven ; we feel the immediate creative action of the mind. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE IMAGINATION. 75 

Imagination never goes by rule, or by experiments, by accumula- 
tion or by aggregation of facts ; it acts spontaneously. We never 
know the process by which it arrives at its pictures, or the road it 
travels. We are brought face to face with a truth which exists at 
the heart of things. 

It winds all noiselessly through the deep wood, 

Till thro' a cleft way, thro' the moss and stone, 

It joins its parent-river with a shout. 

Browning. 

Again, imagination acts immediately. It moves with the vigor 
of life and at once, without deliberation, conscious medium, or 
chosen by-paths, and causes the soul of the hearer to vibrate in 
response. As Fuseli has said : " Invention never suffers the action 
to expire, nor the spectator's fancy to consume itself in preparation, 
or stagnate into repose. It neither begins from the egg, nor 
coldly gathers the remains." As Athena was born fully grown from 
the brain of Zeus, so the creations of the imagination spring into 
the highest vigor of life. Imagination realizes life in everything. 
It is the outgoing of the living, unconscious energy of one mind 
and awakens the life of another. It is the faculty that brings the 
soul into most immediate contact with ideas, feelings, or objects, 
and with other minds or beings. 

Again, the imagination acts simply ; it is never stilted or 
affected ; it sees things as they are. It is by this simplicity that 
the greatest masters of the imagination are recognized. Simplicity 
is the climax of art. Homer, Phidias, Virgil, Dante, Cervantes, 
and Shakespeare, — the greatest masters of simplicity can be 
counted upon the fingers. Simplicity and truthfulness are con- 
ditions without which imagination can hardly act. Imagination 
is the centring of the human soul in the midst of the universe. 
It is the seeing eye that looks deepest into Nature's heart, and the 
hearing ear that catches her simplest and most delicate tones. 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, 
Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 



76 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

Gray. 

The imagination acts freely. Not only must the mind in con- 
ception, but still more must the imagination obey its own law of 
action. For example, in reading, while we use the words of the 
author, the ideas must be our own. 

Boughs are daily rifled by the gusty thieves, 

And the book of Nature getteth short of leaves. 
Seasons. Hood. 

In this play of fancy from Hood's " Seasons/' what particular 
place, or kind of trees or leaves, come before the mind of the 
reader? These vary with every individual mind. The pictures 
may be vivid, but the imagination creates freely ; it is governed 
only by association of ideas. 



I saw two clouds at morning, tinged by the rising sun, 
And in the dawn they floated on, and mingled into one. 



Brainard. 



Here is stated one of the most familiar facts regarding clouds ; 
but imagination rather than memory is awakened in the reader's 
mind, and the kind of cloud, the size, the form, the color, and 
the light and shade are the spontaneous results of processes of 
which the man himself is not conscious. Poetry and art are great 
in proportion as they stimulate this free, spontaneous creation of 
the mind. 

The imagination always acts easily; it is never labored. Phys- 
ical labor not only constricts the body, but the normal action of 
the higher faculties as well. The development, therefore, of the 
imagination must differ essentially from the development of other 
powers of the mind. It calls for simple contemplation, reposeful 
observation, and the free and easy giving of ourselves to the objects 
around us. 

Again, the imagination does not act literally, but sugges- 
tively ; it does not dictate, but hints and intimates. Sometimes 



CHABACTERISTICS OF THE IMAGINATION. 77 

a single word suggests a whole situation, awakens a conception 
of a whole life or character, and gives sympathetic insight into 
feelings which are too delicate almost for expression. Notice 
the use of the word " alien " in the following stanza from the 
" Nightingale " : — 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! 

No hungry generations tread thee down ; 
The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

In ancient days by emperor and clown : 
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; 
The same that oft-times hath 
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam 
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 
From " The Nightingale." Keats. 

Does not the expression "found a path" impart a sense of 
Euth's homelessness, of the vague dread she had in the midst of 
a foreign nation, and the confusion and conflict of emotions 
which made her almost doubt the course she had taken, and feel 
like one lost in a forest? With her heart in this condition, the 
sweet song of the bird makes a path for hope. Or we may 
imagine the alien looks and suspicious glances of strangers, their 
silent contempt, that shut the doors to her heart. But through 
these the song, which she had heard in childhood, finds a path and 
awakens a response. 

Such discussions of poetry are perhaps useless. It is impos- 
sible to interpret in prose these delicate touches, — they are only 
apprehended by imagination ; but we all delight to hear another's 
honest opinion of the meaning of a poem. We must not, how- 
ever, allow prosy explanations to fetter our own imaginative 
action and thorough study. A work of art means something 
peculiar to every individual soul. It is strong, not for what it 
communicates, but for what it evokes. 

The characteristics of the imagination have been well stated by 
Ruskin in his famous section on the Imagination in " Modern 
Painters." The whole deserves careful attention; but a few 
paragraphs are reproduced here for convenience of study: — 



78 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

" It is the power that works into the very rock heart, no matter 
what may be the subject submitted to it ; substance or spirit, all is 
alike divided asunder, joint and marrow, whatever utmost truth, life, 
principle it has, laid bare, and that which has no truth, life, nor princi- 
ple dissipated into its original smoke at a touch. The whispers at 
men's ears it lifts into visible angels. Vials that have lain sealed in 
the deep sea a thousand years it unseals, and brings out of them 
Genii. 

" Every great conception of poet or painter is held and treated by 
this faculty. Every character that is so much as touched by men like 
Eschylus, Homer, Dante, or Shakespeare is by them held by the heart; 
and every circumstance or sentence of their being, speaking or seeming, 
is seized by process from within, and is referred to that inner secret 
spring of which the hold is never lost for an instant, — so that every 
sentence, as it has been thought out from the heart, leads us to the 
centre, and then leaves us to gather what more we may. It is the open 
sesame of a huge, endless cave, with inexhaustible treasure of pure gold 
scattered in it. The wandering about and gathering the pieces may be 
left to any of us, — all can accomplish that ; but the first opening of 
that invisible door in the rock is of the imagination only. 

"The unimaginative writer, on the other hand, as he has never 
pierced to the heart, so he can never touch it. If he has to paint a 
passion, he remembers the external signs of it ; he collects expressions 
of it from other writers, he searches for similes ; he composes, exagger- 
ates, heaps term on term, figure on figure, till we groan beneath the 
cold, disjointed heap : but it is all faggot and no fire ; the life breath is 
not in it. His passion has the form of the Leviathan, but it never 
makes the deep boil; he fastens us all at anchor in the scaly rind ot 
it; our sympathies remain as idle as 'a painted ship upon a painted 
ocean.' 

"A writer with neither imagination nor fancy, describing a fair lip, 
does not see it, but thinks about it, and about what is said of it, and 
calls it well-turned or rosy or delicate or lovely, or afflicts us with some 
other quenching and chilling epithet. Now hear fancy speak: — 

" ' Her lips were red, and one was thin; 
Compared with that was next her chin : 
Some bee had stung it newly.' 

" The real, red, bright being of the lip is there in a moment ; but it 
is all outside, — no expression yet, no mind. Let us go a step farther 
with Warner, of fair Rosamond struck by Eleanor: — 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE IMAGINATION. 79 

" ' With that she dashed her on the lips, 
So dyed double red ; 
Hard was the heart that gave the blow, 
Soft were those lips that bled.' 

" The tenderness of mind begins to mingle with the outside color ; 
the imagination is seen in its awakening. Next Shelley: — 

" ' Lamp of life, thy lips 1 are burning 

Through the veil that seems to hide them, 

As the radiant lines of morning 

Through thin clouds, ere they divide them.' 

" There dawns the entire soul in that morning ; yet we may stop, if 
we choose, at the image still external, — at the crimson clouds. The 
imagination is contemplative rather than penetrative. Last, hear 
Hamlet: — 

" ' Here hung those lips that I have kissed, I know not how oft. "Where be 
your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that 
were wont to set the table on a roar ? ' 

" Here is the essence of lip, and the full power of the imagination. " 

Problem XIII. — Find some of the characteristics of the action of the 
imagination, and simply and naturally ^apply these to the vocal rendering of 
the passages where they are found. 

MISCONCEPTIONS. 

This is a spray the bird clung to, 

Making it blossom with pleasure, 
Ere the high tree-top she sprung to, 

Fit for her nest and her treasure : 

Oh, what a hope beyond measure 
Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to, — 
So to be singled out, built in, and sung to ! 

This is a heart the queen leant on, "> * 

Thrill'd in a minute erratic, 
Ere the true bosom she bent on, 

Meet for love's regal dalmatic. 

Oh, what a fancy ecstatic 
Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on, — 
Love to be sav'd for it, proffer'd to, spent on ! 

Robert Browning. 

i Ruskin here prints "lips" for "limbs,"— doubtless a slip of memory. 



80 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Then rode Geraint into the castle court, 
His charger trampling many a prickly star 
Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones. 

He look'd and saw that all was ruinous. 
Here stood a shatter 'd archway plumed with fern ; 
And here had fall'n a great part of the tower, 
Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff, 
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers : 
And high above a piece of turret stair, 
Worn by the feet that now were silent, wound 
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems 
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms, 
And suck'd the joining of the stones, and look'd 
A knot beneath of snakes ; aloft, a grove. 

And while he waited in the castle court, 
The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang 
Clear thro' the open casement of the hall, 
Singing ; and as the sweet voice of a bird, 
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle, 
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is 
That sings so delicately clear, and make 
Conjecture of the plumage and the form, — 
So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint, 
And made him, like a man abroad at morn, 
When first the liquid note beloved of men 
Comes flying over many a windy wave 
To Britain, and in April suddenly 
Breaks from a coppice gemm'd with green and red, 
And he suspends his converse with a friend, 
Or it may be the labour of his hands, 
To think or say, " There is the nightingale ! " 
So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said, 
"Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me." 

It chanced the song that Enid sang was one 
Of Fortune and her wheel; and Enid sang : 

" Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud ; 
Turn that wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud : 
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. 

"Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown : 
With that wild wheel we go not up or down ; 
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. 









SITUATION AND BACKGROUND. St 

"Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands ; 
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands ; 
For man is man, and master of his fate. 

" Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd : 
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud ; 
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate." 
The Marriage of Geraint. Tennyson. 

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums 

That beat to battle where he stands ; 
Thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands : 
A moment, while the trumpets blow, 

He sees his brood about thy knee ; 

The next, like fire he meets the foe, 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 

Tennyson. 



IX. SITUATION AND BACKGROUND. 

One of the most important functions of the imagination is its 
power to supply the natural surroundings of an object, action, or 
conception. Ordinary thinking, as has been shown, on account 
of the necessity of definite concentration, is apt to conceive ideas 
in isolation ; but however adequate a conception may be, it cannot 
be truthfully expressed in isolation. Expression results from a 
synthetic product of the imagination. Natural expression is 
hardly possible without situation. The power of conceiving and 
feeling a background is most important; the most isolated fact 
must be brought into sympathetic relation with other things, and 
with the human soul, — then expression becomes possible. 

The power to conceive a situation is the chief characteristic of 
a natural, effective reader or speaker. The expression of any 
truth must lift it into the realm of interest. Hence the relations 
of the human soul to the thought it conceives, and to the feeling 
of its life and kinship with other things, are the soul of all artistic 
expression. " It is where the bird is that makes the bird, " said 
William M. Hunt. Certainly if science endeavors to tell what a 
thing is, art shows where it is. The elliptic relations of an object, 

5 






82 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

or those which cannot be expressed in words, are the chief 
elements in all imaginative or dramatic power. These elements 
give any truth its interest and its influence over the human mind. 
Where these are lacking, everything is untruthful, unnatural, 
artificial, and dead. 

A situation or background in some form, or with some degree 
of vividness, is present in every act of the mind. If we read the 
simplest phrase, we find that there is not only an idea suggested, 
but that this idea is located or environed. 

The background, however, is especially important in poetry; 
it is the primary function of poetry to suggest and create a right 
background or relation for truth. Read, for example, some lines 
from one of the simplest and most popular of poems; and we find 
from first to last, not an isolated conception, but a vivid picture of 
every object as a part of a living scene : — 

At eve they all assembled : then care and doubt were fled ; 
With jovial laugh they feasted, the board was nobly spread. 
The elder of the village rose up, his glass in hand, 
And cried, " We drink the downfall of an accursed land ! 

" The night is growing darker, ere one more day is flown, 
Bregenz, our foeman's stronghold, Bregenz shall be our own ! " 
-. The women shrank in terror (yet pride, too, had her part), 
But one poor Tyrol maiden felt death within her heart. 

Nothing she heard around her (though shouts rang forth again) ; 
Gone were the green Swiss valleys, the pasture and the plain ; 
Before her eyes one vision, and in her heart one cry, 
That said, " Go forth, save Bregenz ; and then, if need be, die ! " 

With trembling haste and breathless, with noiseless step she sped ; 
Horses and weary cattle were standing in the shed ; 
She loosed the strong white charger that fed from out her hand, 
She mounted, and she turned his head toward her native land. 

Out — out into the darkness — faster, and still more fast! 
The smooth grass flies behind her, the chestnut wood is passed ; 
She looks up : the clouds are heavy : why is her steed so slow ? 
Scarcely the wind beside them can pass them as they go. 
Legend of Bregenz. Adelaide Procter. 

Now, if in reading these lines we present mere facts, the effect 
is tame. Every fact must be given, but it must become an event 



SITUATION AND BACKGROUND. 83 

in a series. The spirit of the time and place must rise in our 
mind as a background. The imagination must penetrate to the 
heart of the girl, and realize her resolution, her patriotism, her 
heroism. The reader must perceive her deliberation and her 
decision; in short, he must re-create all the workings of her mind: 
the events described are but a means of manifesting her mind and 
heart. Expression is concerned primarily with the human soul. A 
fact in itself is dead ; it must be assimilated ; it must be seen ; it must 
become food for the imagination, before it becomes a living truth. 

Thus, imagination in conceiving the smallest event makes it a 
part of a complete whole: the whole poem, the whole history, the. 
whole situation is held and sustained by the mind, as each idea, 
unfolds itself. The mental conception of the age gives atmos- 
phere and character to the expression of the individual event. 
The study of a specific object, or even of a scene in its isolation, 
is called by the artist a sketch or study. A picture is the bring- 
ing of all the facts or objects into one degree of light, one color, 
one tone, one complete whole. Unity is the fundamental law of 
all art, and it is not a human invention, — it is the expression of 
the relation of things in Nature. 

The situation, or background, must be intuitively and instinc- 
tively conceived; it cannot be reasoned out, it cannot be produced 
by mechanical adjustment. This process is called composition, 
and is not imagination. The proper apprehension of situation 
must come from dramatic instinct, from imaginative intuition. 

One of the most common violations of this function of the 
imagination is found in the public reading of the Scriptures. 
Much of the Bible is poetry, and belongs to the realm of the 
sublimest art; but passages are often rendered with an entire 
disregard of any imaginative situation. Objection is even made 
to studies which endeavor to give the sublime, poetic passages 
in the Prophets or the Psalms any specific background; and 
often many passages of the highest exaltation are given in a 
vague, sad, mournful, or didactic manner, with no situation of 
any kind. 

To read appreciatively the poetry of the Prophets or of the 
Psalms, there must be study to find the historical situation. The 



84: IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

imagination must create an environment. What was the occa- 
sion? What was in the mind of the poet? In many cases, of 
course, it will be impossible to find the historic situation ; but the 
attempt to do so brings a deeper comprehension of the poem : the 
mind will seize upon some conception which will approximate to 
the right one, so as to give specific feeling to the passage. Even 
a wrong situation is better than none. Dr. Cheyne, than whom 
there is no better authority, says : " The historical occasions of the 
Psalms are not to be determined by a dictatorial assertion ; " and in 
speaking of two views of Psalm L. he says : " Neither view do I 
myself hold; but I would rather that my readers adopted one or 
the other than that they rejected all attempts to find historical 
situations for the sacred lyrics. Without reconstructing the 
porticoes, we shall not be in a position to do full justice to the 
inner glories of the palaces of the Psalter." 

The conception of a situation by a critic colors even his transla- 
tion of specific words. For example, Ewald thinks that verses 
7 and 8 of Psalm CIV. refer to the great earthquake which took 
place near the close of Uzziah's reign, — a calamity which made 
a deep impression on the national mind, as shown by the imagery 
of many prophets and psalmists; he therefore translates the 
passage thus : — 

At thy rebuke the mountains flee ; 

At the voice of thy thunder they tremble away ; 

Mountains rise and valleys sink 

To the place which thou hast founded for them. 

Most critics, however, think there is a reference here to 
creation, and so they give a different tense to the verbs; but the 
ordinary translation means little or nothing. It is foreign to the 
spirit of Hebrew poetry not to refer to definite places and events. 
In fact, it is untrue to the spirit of all poetry. The highest 
flights of the imagination, in dealing with a general truth, start 
from specific thought and a definite situation. 

In speaking of the words of Jeremiah, " Oh that I had in the 
wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men, that I might leave 
my people and go from them! " Dr. Cheyne says that "one of 



SITUATION AND BACKGROUND. 85 

the psalmists who thought themselves back into the soul of this 
prophet, was so moved by this passage that he amplified it in 
lyric verse." Psalm LV., at any rate, embodies the bitter expe- 
rience of some soul in a similar situation ; and if a reader, before 
reading the fifty-fifth Psalm, will make a thorough study of the 
whole life of Jeremiah, enter into imaginative sympathy with 
some one of his despondent moods in the midst of trickery and 
disappointment, and bring all his feeling to an intense realization 
of these lines, he will realize the true spirit of lyric poetry, and 
also the true nature of vocal expression and its use of the 
imagination. 

Fear and trembling have come upon me, 
And horror overwhelmeth me ; 
And I say, Oh that I had wings like a dove ! 
Then would I fly away, and be at rest ; 
Lo, then would I wander far off, 
I would lodge in the wilderness ; 
I w r ould haste me to my safe retreat 
From the stormy wind and the tempest. 
Translated by BeWitt. Psalm Iv. 5-8. 

The student must, in every way, endeavor to be accurate. He 
must consult many authorities, and, above all, from internal evi- 
dence judge for himself what was the real situation; but when he 
comes to read, he must give his imagination some freedom. For 
example, in this fifty-fifth Psalm, it makes little difference in the 
reading whether he considers the Psalm to have been written by 
Jeremiah, or by one of his contemporaries, or by a later psalmist 
" who thought himself back into the situation, " — the feeling will 
be the same. The imagination will centre upon Jeremiah as the 
real situation, and the reader will think himself back into a reali- 
zation of the great prophet and the spirit of his time. 

At times a personal situation may be present. For example, in 
reading the ninety-first Psalm, one may see rising before him the 
worn face of some poor woman upon her dying bed, to whom he 
once read the words, " Under His wings shalt thou trust, " which 
gave her hope. That event may take such hold upon his mind 
that it becomes a situation, or background of the Psalm. Such 



86 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

situations are in accordance with the true spirit of poetry, which 
is " the expression of the universal element in human nature." 
This universal element, however, will not be felt without the defi- 
nite grasp by the imagination of a specific situation. 

Poetry, wherever it may be found, is governed by the same 
laws. It is the product of the same faculties, and it can be inter- 
preted only by the imagination. It is not primarily didactic ; " it 
does the thing that breeds the thought." It deals with truth, 
not with falsehood. It is synthetic, and not analytic; but it is 
founded upon vivid ideas and specific thought. No poetry is 
founded upon confusion or misunderstanding or inadequacy of 
conception. The sublimest poem issues from a vivid and clear 
realization of truth. 

Many persons, even clergymen, who would be ashamed not to 
be able to give the argument of Hamlet, or King Lear, or David 
Copperfield, or " Les Miserables, " allow themselves to remain 
without any definite conception of the argument of the Book of 
Job, of the second Psalm, of the Book of Amos, or of the great- 
est Hebrew classic, Isaiah. Much of the Bible is vague and con- 
fused to many minds. 

As an example of the imaginative use which may be made of 
the results of the most severe critical study, note how the fortieth 
chapter of Isaiah takes definite shape and awakens the most ex- 
alted feeling, when studied and read in the light of the situation 
which is now accepted by almost every one, — that the prophet 
was at Babylon in captivity, and was speaking to his fellow-cap- 
tives of their return. The six hundred miles from Babylon to 
Jerusalem westward across the desert is " the wilderness " through 
which is to open " the way of the Lord." Through this is to be 
prepared a " highway " for God's deliverance of his people. 
Through this seemingly impassable region " every valley shall be 
exalted, and every mountain and hill be made low." The prophet 
sees far away on the hills of Judea his native country, idealized 
into an angelic form that looks out across the desert and beholds 
the returning wanderers, as a herald proclaims the good news to 
the desolated land ; or, as others think, that calls the captives by 
their ancient name to awaken their patriotism, and to rouse them 



SITUATION AND BACKGROUND. 87 

to proclaim to one another the fact that their bondage is over. 
The passage is inexplicable without some such situation which 
took hold of the ideas of a nation and became prophetic of even 
higher events. A reader should study such a passage with at 
least as much intensity and earnestness as he would give to a 
monologue of Browning or a play of Shakespeare. It is the sub- 
liinest poetry, and will inspire the dullest imagination. 

THE VOICES. 

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. 

Speak ye home to the heart of Jerusalem and call unto her, 

That her affliction is ended, that her debt is paid j 

That she hath received from the hand of Jehovah double for all her sins. 

Hark, one calling : 

" In the wilderness prepare ye a way for Jehovah ! 

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God ! 

Let every valley be exalted, 

And every mountain and hill be made low ; 

And let the rugged be made a plain, 

And the ledges of rocks a valley, 

And the glory of Jehovah be revealed, 

And all flesh shall see it together ; 

For the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it." 

Hark ! one saying, " Cry ! " 
And I said : 

"What can I cry? 
All flesh is grass, 

And all its beauty as a wild-flower. 
Grass is withered, flower faded : 
For the breath of Jehovah hath blown upon it. 
Surely grass is the people." 

" Grass withereth, flower fadeth : 

Yet the word of our God will stand forever." 

Up on a high mountain, get thee up, 

Evangelistess Zion ! 

Lift up thy voice with strength, 

Evangelistess Jerusalem ! 

Lift up, be not afraid, say to the cities of Judah : 

Behold your God. 

Behold the Lord, Jehovah : as a mighty one will he come, 



88 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

His arm ruling for Him ; 
Behold, His reward is with Him, 
And His recompence before Him. 
He will feed His flock like a shepherd, 
Gather the lambs with His right arm 
And carry them in His bosom, 
And tenderly lead the ewe-mothers. 

Who hath measured the waters with the hollow of His hand, and reg- 
ulated the heavens with a span, and taken up the dust of the earth in a 
third measure, and weighed the mountains with scales, and the hills in a 
balance? Who hath directed the spirit of Jehovah, and instructed Him 
as His counsellor ? With whom took He counsel, and w r ho would have 
explained to Him and instructed Him in the path of judgment, and 
taught Him knowledge, and helped Him to know the way of intelli- 
gence ? Behold, nations ! as a drop from a bucket, and like a grain of 
sand in a balance, are they esteemed ; behold, islands ! like an atom of 
dust that rises in the air. And Lebanon is not enough for burning, nor 
its game enough for an offering. All the nations are as nothing before 
Him ; as spent and as waste are they regarded for Him. 

To whom then can ye liken God, and what kind of image can ye 
place beside Him ? 

The image ! A smith cast it, a smelter plates it with gold, and smelts 
for it silver chains. He that is straightened for an offering, — he chooses 
a block of wood that will not rot ; he seeketh for himself a skilful carver 
to set up an image that will not totter. 

Have ye not known ? Have ye not heard ? Hath it not been told 
you from the beginning ? Have ye not understood from the foundations 
of the earth '? He who is enthroned above the vault of the earth, and 
its dwellers are before him as grasshoppers ; who stretcheth the heavens 
as a fine veil, and spreadeth them like a dwelling tent. He who bring- 
eth great men to nothing, maketh judges of the earth like a desolation. 
They are hardly planted, hardly sown, their stem has hardly taken root 
in the earth, and he only blows upon them, and they dry up, and the 
storm carries them away like stubble. " To whom then will ye liken 
me that I may match with him? " saith the Holy One. 

Lift up your eyes on high, and see ! Who hath created these ? It is 
He who bringeth out their host by number, calleth them all by names, 
by the greatness of His might, for He is powerful in strength : there is 
not one that is missing. Why sayest thou then, Jacob, and speakest, 
O Israel, " My way is hidden from Jehovah, and my right is overlooked 
by my God " ? 



IMAGINATION AND FEELING. 89 

Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that an everlasting 
God is Jehovah, Creator of the ends of the earth 1 He fainteth not, 
neither becomes weary. His understanding is unsearchable. Giver to 
the weary of strength ! And upon him that is of no might He lavisheth 
power. Even youths may grow faint and weary, and young men utterly 
fall; but they who hope in Jehovah shall renew their strength; they 
shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ; 
they shall walk, and not faint. 



X. IMAGINATION AND FEELING. 

And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; 
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; 
And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Boused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 
"While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 
Or whispering, with white lips, "The foe ! They come ! they come !" 

Byron. 

Suddenly the pathway ends, 

Sheer the precipice descends, 
Loud the torrent roars unseen ; 

Thirty feet from side to side 

Yawns the chasm ; on air must ride 

He who crosses this ravine. 
Roushan Beg. Longfellow. 

The first line of the second extract may be read in many ways. 
The reader may imagine a simple walk, a race for pleasure, or 
some game ; the pathway may end so as to excite mere curiosity, 
pleasant surprise, simple disappointment; or its sudden ending on 
the brink of a precipice may mean life and death, as it does in the 
above illustration. If the passage is read abstractly or without 
relation to a specific situation, no feeling whatever can be awak- 
ened in reader or listener. Thus to read even one line with feel- 
ing, a definite situation must be conceived. 

The first clause of the extract from Byron can also be read as 
the expression of entirely different situations. The mounting may 



90 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

be for a hunt, as an act in some comical story, to go for a physi- 
cian, to escape danger, to save life, or to take a ride for pleasure. It 
may also be seen and felt as one act among thousands in prepara- 
tion for the battle of Waterloo, — about this one act being gath- 
ered the situation and atmosphere of the whole event. Vocal 
expression can be still more definite. The mounting may be sim- 
ply on the part of an individual, or it may be the whole army. 
Such variations can be applied to every phrase and sentence in 
both extracts. 

From these illustrations it may be seen that feeling depends 
upon situation; that with every change of situation there is a 
change in emotion ; and, in fact, that imaginative conception of a 
situation is the source of true emotion. 

Feeling also results from the vivid realization of relations or 
associations. Here, for example, is a little coat. To the ordinary 
observer it is a mere rag ; but the mother folds it away with tears, 
for it recalls a little form with the sunshine and tenderness, the 
joys and hopes, of other days. Memor}' thus plays an important 
part in awakening feeling ; but the imagination uses the material 
furnished by memory and creates a background, gives relations 
and associations. Thus the most familiar objects or events are 
often so related or associated by the imagination as to awaken 
exalted emotion. 

Here are a few scraps of cloth sewed together floating upon the 
breeze from the mast of a ship * but for this men will give their 
lives: it is the flag of their country. 

Notice how the poet makes the season, the cold, leafless trees 
and the stillness, all co-operate to awaken feeling for the bird : — 

A widow bird sate mourning for her Love 

Upon a wintry bough ; 
The frozen wind crept on above, 

The freezing stream below. 

There was no leaf upon the forest bare, 

No flower upon the ground, 

And little motion in the air 

Except the mill-wheel's sound. 

Shelley. 






IMAGINATION AND FEELING. 91 

One of the most important functions of imagination is to pre- 
vent the mind from forming a mere literal conception of any 
object or scene, and to connect4t with deeper and more significant 
relations to life. Blood to the outer eye awakens horror; the 
imagination of a Shakespeare uses it so as to become the means of 
stimulating exalted feeling : — 

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ; 
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, 
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it, 
As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd 
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no. 

This passage is considered one of the most imaginative in the 
English language. Prose explanations of it only spoil it. By a 
simple, natural process, home-like images are drawn forth from 
every heart, and the observer does not see mere blood, but beholds 
a living embodiment of the love of Csesar for Brutus. 

Imagination lifts the commonplace into the realm of interest; 
it surrounds the smallest object with the atmosphere of infinity. 
It makes the most trivial event throb with the spirit of ages, and 
the life of the race thrill in an individual soul. 

We are tempted to dwell merely upon the literal and common- 
place. A drudge in any profession is one who works without 
imagination. Imagination exalts and ennobles all life; it awakens 
the mind to feel what will be in what is, — to see the ideal in the 
actual ; it penetrates beneath the surface of mere sense-perception, 
and discovers hidden relations of the life which throbs at the heart 
of the universe, and thus awakens a thrill of feeling in the dullest 
breast. 

The imagination also brings the individual mind into sympathy 
with the race. It creates the possibility of that true altruism by 
which each soul can appreciate the point of view of another 
soul, of another race or age. It enables man to realize that 
which can only be suggested or vaguely hinted at in language. 
It gives power to create art, and to read and feel the message of 
the art of every age. 

Again, imagination arouses feeling by vividly conceiving ideas 
as present realities ; by it the distant is made near, the past made 



92 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

present. The world of ideas becomes a living world, and every 
object is conceived in a natural, a living scene. " It is by means 
of ideal presence, " says Lord Karnes, " that our passions are 
excited; and till words produce that charm, they avail nothing; 
even real events entitled to our belief must be conceived present 
and passing in our sight, before they can move us. And this 
theory serves to explain several phenomena otherwise unaccount- 
able. A misfortune happening to a stranger makes a less 
impression than one happening to a man we know, even where 
we are in no way interested in him ; our acquaintance with this 
man, however slight, aids the conception of his suffering in our 
presence. Even genuine history has no command over our 
passions but by ideal presence only. Without it the finest 
speaker or writer would in vain attempt to move any passion ; our 
sympathy would be confined to objects that are really present; 
and language would lose entirely its signal power of making us 
sympathize with beings removed at the greatest distance of time 
as well as of place. " 

These facts indicate that imagination and feeling are closely 
connected. Imagination has been defined as " the tmind of pas- 
sion, the thinking of the heart." "Imagination," says Professor 
Shairp, " seems to be a power intermediate between intellect 
and emotion, looking towards both, and partaking of the nature 
of both. In its highest form, it would seem to be based on 
1 moral intensity.' The emotional and the intellectual in it act 
and react on each other, — deep emotion kindling imagination, 
and expressing itself in imaginative form, while imaginative 
insight kindles and deepens emotion. Whenever the soul 
comes vividly in contact with any fact, truth, or existence; 
whenever it realizes and takes them home to itself with more 
than common intensity, — out of that meeting of the soul and 
its object there arises a thrill of joy, a glow of feeling. . . . 
Emotion, then, from first to last, inseparably attends the exercise 
of imagination, — pre-eminently in him who creates, in a lesser 
degree in those who enjoy his creations. " 

All this applies with double force to speaking, or to any form 
of vocal expression. It is the imagination which conceives an 



IMAGINATION AND FEELING. 93 

idea in its relation to others, and supplies the right background; 
which brings ideas or objects into sympathetic association with 
the human mind, and makes them live and act; it is the only 
faculty that can create ideal presence. Hence imagination is the 
chief cause of feeling in all forms of art, but especially in 
speaking. 

It is only an unimaginative speaker who says he cannot read 
a poem or story because he never " saw the place" or experienced 
the emotion. Such a person entirely misunderstands the nature 
of feeling. Every scene in history, sacred or profane, is imag- 
inary. Hardly a scene in the Bible can be definitely located; and 
even if the few scraggy trees called Gethsemane mark the real 
spot, what help are they to feeling? None. The imagination 
must create a Capernaum and a Calvary. In fact, without imag- 
ination, noble emotion is impossible. 

Besides, emotion arises from an imaginative situation more 
than from a literal scene or object. When Mark Antony steps 
down from the rostrum, Shakespeare does not make him try to 
awaken feeling by showing Caesar's body to the Roman populace. 
He displays at first only the mantle, and appeals to their memory 
and imagination, not to their eyes. He even carries them back 
to a great historical battle which was a part of their national 
pride. Even then he does not show them the body, but makes 
them feel Caesar's death by showing the thrusts of the daggers 
through his mantle. He appeals to the imagination and not to 
the eye to awaken emotion. People have been so stunned, so 
shocked, by the sight of a dead body — of a father or a mother or 
a child — that no tear could be shed; but afterward the sight 
of a vacant chair, or a pair of little shoes, has wrung the heart 
and caused a flood of tears. The deepest passion is awakened by 
suggestion, because suggestion is associated with imagination. 
The higher the thought, the deeper the feeling, the more impossi- 
ble it is for expression to be literal. " The art of expression, " 
says Goethe, " is the art of intimation." 

Without imagination there can be no genuineness in art. It is 
only by imagination that a speaker can make real the scenes of 
other days ; it is only by imagination that we identify ourselves 



94 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

with the sorrows of our kind. Sympathy is insight, and insight 
is sympathy. The unimaginative person is unsympathetic and 
lacks feeling. He can sympathize only with experiences he has 
had himself. Hence, he measures all by himself; he is selfish, 
unable to enter into sympathy with people of other ages, other 
lands, or other relations of life. 

Weep no more, lady, weep no more, thy sorrow is in vain ; 

For violets pluck'd, the sweetest showers will ne'er make grow again. 

Beaumont and Fletcher. 

In the first of these lines there is an endeavor to awaken 
sympathy ; but it is in the delicate suggestion in the next line, by 
means of a specific imaginative picture, that the deeper tender- 
ness of the heart is touched. 

It was a lovely sight to see 
The lady Christabel, when she 
Was praying at the old oak-tree : 

Amid the jagged shadows 
Of mossy leafless boughs, 

Kneeling in the moonlight 

To make her gentle vows ; 

Her slender palms together press'd, 

Heaving sometimes on her breast ; 

Her face resigned to bliss or bale — 

Her face, oh call it fair, not pale ! 

And both blue eyes more bright than clear, 

Each about to have a tear. 

Coleridge. 

Exercises in situation and vision are very important, because 
they develop imagination and dramatic instinct. They impart a 
sense of the value of situation and surroundings to truth and 
emotion. They develop also that emotional response to ideas 
which lies at the foundation of all noble expression. Such exer- 
cises tend to correct monotony, and that vague neutrality and 
cold artificiality which are so common. When the imagination 
is brought to bear upon a scene, it creates vital interest ; it makes 
everything live ; it secures precision and definiteness of emotion, 
truthfulness, and variation of expression. 



IMAGINATION AND FEELING. 95 

Students should practise reading aloud poems in which they 
positively delight. There should, however, be meditation upon 
them ; the pleasure must not be superficial. A selection which at 
tirst seems to create interest will soon grow uninteresting if it has 
not in itself imagination of a high order. On the contrary, a 
selection which to the ordinary student may at first seem uninter- 
esting, when rightly studied will begin to grow in interest, and 
awaken more and more appreciation. " A thing of beauty is a joy 
forever." Imagination not only awakens emotion on the instant, 
— more than this, it arouses that permanent condition of thought 
which is the chief joy and pleasure of the human soul. 

Notice how the greatest of all masters in the portrayal of char- 
acter, makes successive facts or scenes rack Shylock with con- 
flicting passions. Does Tubal give these successive situations 
alternately from careless dulness, or intentionally? 

SHYLOCK AND TUBAL. 

Shylock. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found 
my daughter ? 

Tubal. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her. 

Shy. Why there, there, there, there ! a diamond gone, cost me two 
thousand ducats in Frankfort ! The curse never fell upon our nation 
till now ; I never felt it till now : two thousand ducats in that, and 
other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at 
my foot, and the jewels in her ear ! Would she were hersed at my 
foot, and the ducats in her coffin ! No news of them 1 Why, so : and 
I know not what 's spent in the search. Why, thou loss upon loss ! 
the thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief ; and no 
satisfaction, no revenge ; nor no ill luck stirring, but what lights o' 
my shoulders ; no sighs, but o' my breathing ; no tears, but o' my 
shedding. 

Tub. Yes, other men have ill luck too : Antonio, as I heard in 
Genoa — 

Shy. What, what, what 1 ill luck, ill luck ? 

Tub. — hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripoli s. 

Shy. I thank God, I thank God I — Is it true ? is it true ? 

Tub. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck. 

Shy. I thank thee, good Tubal. — Good news, good news! ha, ha! — 
Where? in Genoa? 



96 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Tub. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night, fourscore 
ducats. 

Shy. Thou stick'st a dagger in me ; — I shall never see my gold 
again. Fourscore at a sitting ! fourscore ducats ! 

Tub. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to 
Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break. 

Shy. I am very glad of it. I '11 plague him: I '11 torture him : I am 
glad of it. 

Tub. One of them showed me a ring, that he had of your daughter 
for a monkey. 

Shy. Out upon her ! Thou torturest me, Tubal ! It was my tur- 
quoise : I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor. I would not have 
given it for a wilderness of monkeys. 

Tub. But Antonio is certainly undone. 

Shy. Nay, that 's true, that 's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an 

officer ; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him, 

if he forfeit ; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise 

I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue ; go, good Tubal ; 

at our synagogue, Tubal. 

Shakespeare. 

Again, in the speeches of Cassius, observe how imagination 
works upon feeling. His hatred becomes active as he recalls or 
creates a picture of Caesar's weakness in the water, or when he 
had the fever in Spain. 

CASSIUS INSTIGATING BRUTUS. 

Cassius. Will you go see the order of the course ? 

Brutus. Not I. 

Cas. I pray you, do. 

Bru. I am not gamesome : I do lack some part 
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. 
Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires; 
I '11 leave you. 

Cas. Brutus, I do observe you now of late 
I have not from your eyes that gentleness 
And show of love as I was wont to have : 
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand 
Over your friend that loves you. 

Bru. Cassius, 

Be not deceived : if I have veil'd my look, 
I turn the trouble of my countenance 






IMAGINATION AND FEELING. 97 

Merely upon myself. Vexed I am 

Of late with passions of some difference, 

Conceptions only^proper to myself, 

Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviours ; 

But let not therefore my good friends be grieved — 

Among which number, Cassius, be you one — 

Kor construe any further my neglect, 

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, 

Forgets the shows of love to other men. 

Cas. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion ; 
By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried 
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. 
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face ? 

Bru. No, Cassius ; for the eye sees not itself, 
But by reflection by some other things. 

Cas. 'T is just : 
And it is very much lamented, Brutus, 
That you have no such mirror as will turn 
Your hidden worthiness into your eye, 
That you might see your shadow. I have heard, 
Where many of the best respect in Rome, 
Except immortal Caesar, speaking of Brutus 
And groaning underneath this age's yoke, 
Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes. 

Bru. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, 
That you would have me seek into myself 
For that which is not in me ? 

Cas. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear : 
And since you know you cannot see yourself 
So well as by reflection, I, your glass, 
Will modestly discover to yourself 
That of yourself which you yet know not of. 
And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus : 
Were I a common laugher, or did use 
To stale with ordinary oaths my love 
To every new protester ; if you know 
That I do fawn on men and hug them hard, 
And after scandal them; or if you know 
That I profess myself in banqueting 
To all the rout, — then hold me dangerous. 

[Flourish and shout. 

Bru. What means this shouting ? I do fear, the people 
Choose Caesar for their king. 

7 



98 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Cas. Ay, do you fear it ? 

Then must I think you would not have it so. 

Bru. I would not, Cassius ; yet I love him well. 
But wherefore do you hold me here so long ? 
"What is it that you would impart to me ? 
If it be aught toward the general good, 
Set honour in one eye and death i' th' other, 
And I will look on both indifferently; 
For let the gods so speed me as I love 
The name of honour more than I fear death. 

Cas. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, 
As well as I do know your outward favour. 
Well, honour is the subject of my story. 
I cannot tell what you and other men 
Think of this life ; but, for my single self, 
I had as lief not be, as live to be 
In awe of such a thing as I myself. 
I was born free as Caesar ; so were you : 
We both have fed as well ; and we can both 
Endure the winter's cold as well as he : 
For once, upon a raw and gusty day, 
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, 
Caesar said to me, "Dar'st thou, Cassius, now 
Leap in with me into this angry flood, 
And swim to yonder point ? " Upon the word, 
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in 
And bade him follow : so indeed he did. 
The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it 
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside 
And stemming it with hearts of controversy. 
But ere we could arrive the point proposed, 
Csesar cried, " Help me, Cassius, or I sink ! " 
I, as iEneas, our great ancestor, 
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder 
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber 
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man 
Is now become a god, and Cassius is 
A wretched creature, and must bend his body 
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. 
He had a fever when he was in Spain, 
And when the fit was on him, I did mark 
How he did shake : 't is true, this god did shake : 
His coward lips did from their colour fly; 



I 



IMAGINATION AND FEELING. 99 

And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world 

Did lose his lustre. I did hear him groan : 

Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans 

Mark him and write his speeches in their books, 

Alas, it cried, "Give me some drink, Titinius," 

As a sick girl. Ye gods! it doth amaze me, 

A man of such a feeble temper should 

So get the start of the majestic world, 

And bear the palm alone. * [Shout. 

Bru. Another general shout ! 
I do believe that these applauses are 
For some new honours that are heap'd on Caesar. 

Cas. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
Like a Colossus, and we petty men 
Walk under his huge legs and peep about 
To find ourselves dishonourable graves. 
Men at some time are masters of their fates : 
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 
Brutus and Caesar : what should be in that "Caesar" ? 
Why should that name be sounded more than yours ? 
Write them together : yours is as fair a name ; 
Sound them: it doth become the mouth as well ; 
Weigh them: it is as heavy; conjure with 'em : 
" Brutus " will start a spirit as soon as " Caesar." [Shout. 

Now, in the names of all the gods at once, 
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
That he is grown so great ? Age, thou art sham'd ! 
Borne, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods ! 
When went there by an age, since the great flood, 
But it was fam'd with more than with one man ? 
When could they say till now, that talk'd of Rome, 
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man ? 
Now is it Rome indeed and room enough, 
When there is in it but one only man. 
Oh, you and I have heard our fathers say, 
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd 
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome 
As easily as a king. 

Bru. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous ; 
What you would work me to, I have some aim. 
How I have thought of this and of these times, 
I shall recount hereafter ; for this present, 
I would not, so with love I might entreat you, 



100 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Be any further moved. What you have said 

I will consider ; what you have to say 

I will with patience hear, and find a time 

Both meet to hear and answer such high things. 

Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this : 

Brutus had rather be a villager 

Than to repute himself a son of Rome 

Under these hard conditions as this time 

Is like to lay upon us. 

Gas. I am glad that my weak words 

Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus. 

Shakespeare. 

Problem XIV. — Read a poem referring to common objects or expressing 
simple ideas, conceiving the ideas so vividly and uniting them so har- 
moniously as to awaken noble emotion. 

Sometimes with secure delight 
The upland hamlets will invite, 
"When the merry bells ring round, 
And the jocund rebeks sound 
To many a youth and many a maid, 
Dancing in the chequered shade. 






TO MARGUERITE. 

Yes : in the sea of life enisl'd, 

With echoing straits between us thrown, 
Dotting the shoreless watery wild, 
We mortal millions live alone. 

The islands feel the enclasping flow, 

And then their endless bounds they know. 

But when the moon their hollows light, 

And they are swept by balms of spring ; 
And in their glens, on starry nights, 
The nightingales divinely sing ; 
And lovely notes, from shore to shore, 
Across the sounds and channels pour, — 

Oh then a longing like despair 

Is to their farthest caverns sent ; 
For surely once, they feel we were 
Parts of a single continent. 

Now round us spreads the watery plain — 
Oh might our marges meet again ! 



«i 



EFFECT OF PASSION UPON IMAGINATION. 101 

Who order'd that their longing's fire 

Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd ? 
Who renders vain their deep desire ? — 

A God, a God their severance rul'd ; 

And bade betwixt their shores to be 

The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea. 

Matthew Arnold. 



XI. EFFECT OF PASSION UPON IMAGINATION. 

" Between the acting of a dreadful thing 
And the first motion, all the interim is 
Like a phantasma or a hideous dream. 
The mortal instruments are then in council ; 
And the state of man, like to a little kingdom 
Suffers then the nature of an insurrection. " 

Not only does imagination awaken feeling, but feeling arouses 
imagination. After Horatio and his companions have seen the 
ghost at the close of the first scene in " Hamlet, " their talk rises 
to a much higher plane. " The morn with russet mantle clad, 
walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill." Some have con- 
sidered this as being untrue to Nature ; but these men have seen 
the ghost, and their imaginations have been aroused. 

Macbeth after the murder of Duncan, with conscience quick- 
ened and every feeling awake, reveals great activity of imagina- 
tion. His metaphors are more or less mixed, but their vigor and 
force manifest the excitement of his mind. The activity of his 
imagination is the direct effect of the activity of passion. 

Notice how Othello, about to strangle Desdemona, sees the 
little candle, and his awakened feeling impels the imagination to 
create images and analogies : — 

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, 

I can again thy former light restore, 

Should I repent me ; but once put out thine, 

Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, 

I know not where is that Promethean heat 

That can thy light relume : when I have pluck'd thy rose, 

I cannot give it vital breath again ; 

It needs must wither. 
Othello. Shakespeare. 






102 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The emotions of Eomeo in the garden are stirred by the sight 
of Juliet at the window, and the result is vivid and complex fig- 
ures. His imagination is intensely , " passionately active. " 

Romeo. He jests at scars, that never felt a wound. 

[Juliet appears above at a window. 
But, soft ! what light through yonder window breaks ? 
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. 
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, 
Who is already sick and pale with grief, 
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she : 
Be not her maid, since she is envious ; 
Her vestal livery is but sick and green, 
And none but fools do wear it : cast it off. 
It is my lady ; oh, it is my love ! 
Oh that she knew she were ! 
She speaks, yet she says nothing : what of that ? 
Her eye discourses, I will answer it. — 
I am too bold, 't is not to me she speaks : 
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, 
Having some business, do entreat her eyes 
To twinkle in their spheres till they return. 
What if her eyes were there, they in her head ? 
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, 
As daylight doth a lamp ; her eyes in heaven 
Would through the airy region stream so bright 
That birds would sing and think it were not night. 
As silver- voiced ; her eyes as jewel-like, 
And cased as richly ; in face another Juno ; 
Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them hungry 
The more she gives them speech. 
Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare. 

Intensity of feeling arouses and stimulates the imagination. It 
has been said by some one that the " literary language is a stag- 
nant pool." The words which men use under pressure of real 
emotion, these are the running stream, the living spring. That 
is to say, the domination of passion and imagination are necessary 
to any effective use of figurative language or literary style. Man 
must give himself up to feeling, to have any true use of his imag- 
ination. Imagination is a spontaneous faculty which cannot be 



EFFECT OF PASSION UPON IMAGINATION. 103 

governed or guided in any deliberative manner. No one can use 
illustrations by rule, or by any mechanical or artificial process; 
they must result from abandon to feeling and imagination; they 
must be dictated by spontaneous impulse. 

This is not only true of words in literary composition ; it is still 
more true of the modulations of the voice and the body in .reading, 
acting, or speaking. If words to be living must be dominated by 
imagination and feeling, how much more must the inflections and 
textures of the voice and the actions of the body, which belong to 
natural and more spontaneous modes of expression. 

The necessity of abandon has already been shown ; 1 but the more 
fully we pass into the realm of imagination, the more exalted the 
form of poetry that we read, the more we find mere mechanical or 
deliberative action inadequate for any effective and natural ex- 
pression. We must abandon ourselves to the free and spontaneous 
sway of imagination and feeling. 

Imagination and feeling are thus always connected. To awaken 
imagination we must sympathetically contemplate an object. To 
read a poem we must meditate upon it quietly, and assimilate 
every situation. Imagination cannot act without emotion. It 
refines and ennobles feeling; but feeling in its turn is the motive 
power of imagination. 

"We parted : sweetly gleam'd the stars, 

And sweet the vapour-braided blue, 

Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars, 

As homeward by the church I drew. 

Tennyson. 



Oh, it is monstrous, monstrous ! 
Methought the billows spoke and told me of it ; 
The winds did sing it to me ; and the thunder, 
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced 
The name of Prosper : it did bass my trespass ; 
Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded, and 
I '11 seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded, 
And with him there lie mudded. 
Tempest. Shakespeare. 

1 See lessons in Vocal Expression, pp. 35-41/and Province of Expression, pp. 
184-189. 



104 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

My wind, cooling my broth, 
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought 
What harm a wind too great might do at sea. 
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, 
But I should think of shallows and of flats ; 
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, 
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs, 
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church, 
And see the holy edifice of stone, 
And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, 
Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side, 
Would scatter all her spices on the stream, 
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks ; 
And, in a word, but even now worth this, 
And now worth nothing. 
Gratiano in "Merchant of Venice." Shakespeare. 

THE MURDER OF DUNCAN. 

Macbeth. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, 
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. — [Exit Servant. 

Is this a dagger which I see before me, 

The handle toward my hand ? Come, let me clutch thee : — 
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
To feeling as to sight ? or art thou but 
A dagger of the mind, a false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ? 
I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
As this which now I draw. 
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going ; 
And such an instrument I was to use. — 
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, 
Or else worth all the rest : I see thee still, 
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, 
Which was not so before. — There 's no such thing : 
It is the bloody business which informs 
Thus to mine eyes. — Now o'er the one half-world 
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 
The curtain'd sleep ; now witchcraft celebrates 
« Pale Hecate's offerings ; and wither'd Murder, 
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, 
Whose howl 's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, 
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, toward his designs 



EFFECT OF PASSION UPON IMAGINATION. 105 

Moves like a ghost. — Thou sure and firm-set earth, 

Hear not my steps, which way they take, for fear 

The very stones prate of my whereabout, x 

And take the present horror from the time, 

Which now suits with it. — "Whiles I threat, he lives : 

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. [A bell rings. 

I go, and it is done ; the bell invites me. 

Hear it not, Duncan ; for it is a knell 

That summons thee to Heaven or to Hell. [Exit. 

Lady Macbeth (entering). That which hath made them drunk hath made 
me bold ; 
What hath quench'd them, hath given me fire. — Hark ! — Peace ! 
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman, 
Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it : 
The doors are open ; and the surfeited grooms 
Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg'd their possets, 
That death and nature do contend about them, 
Whether they live or die. 

Macbeth (within). Who 's there ? — what, ho ! 

L. Macb. Alack ! I am afraid they have awak'd, 
And 't is not done : — the attempt, and not the deed, 
Confounds us. — Hark ! — I laid their daggers ready ; 
He could not miss them. — Had he not resembled 
My father as he slept, I had done 't. — My husband ! [Enter Macb. 

Macb. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise ? 

L. Macb. I heard the owl scream, and the cricket cry. 
Did you not speak ? 

Macb. When ? 

L. Macb. Now. 

Macb. As I descended ? 

L. Macb. Ay. 

Macb. Hark ! — 
Who lies i' the second chamber ? 

L. Macb. Donalbain. 

Macb. This is a sorry sight. [Looking on his hands. 

L. Macb. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. 

Macb. There 's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried, " Murder ! " 
That they did wake each other : I stood and heard them ; 
But they did say their prayers, and address'd them 
Again to sleep. 

L. Macb. There are two lodged together. 

Macb. One cried "God bless us ! " and "Amen," the other ; 
As they had seen me, with these hangman's hands. 



106 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Listening their fear, I could not say, "Amen," 
When they did say, " God bless us ! " 

L. Macb. Consider it not so deeply. 

Mad. But wherefore could not I pronounce, " Amen" ? 
I had most need of blessing, and " Amen " 
Stuck in my throat. 

L. Macb. These deeds must not be thought 
After these ways ; so, it will make us mad. 

Macb. Methought I heard a voice cry, " Sleep no more ! 
Macbeth does murder sleep ! " the innocent sleep ; 
Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, 
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast — 

L. Macb. What do you mean ? 

Macb. Still it cried, " Sleep no more ! " to all the house : 
"Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor 
Shall sleep no more ; Macbeth shall sleep no more ! " 

L. Macb. Who was it that thus cried ? Why, worthy thane, 
You do unbend your noble strength, to think 
So brain -sickly of things. Go, get some water, 
And wash this filthy witness from your hand. — 
Why did you bring these daggers from the place ? 
They must lie there : go, carry them ; and smear 
The sleepy grooms with blood. 

Macb. I '11 go no more : 

I am afraid to think what I have done ; 
Look on 't again 1 dare not. 

L. Macb. Infirm of purpose ! 

Give me the daggers : the sleeping and the dead 
Are but as pictures : 't is the eye of childhood 
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, 
I '11 gild the faces of the grooms withal, 
For it must seem their guilt. [Exit. Knocking within. 

Macb. Whence is that knocking ? 

How is 't with me, when every noise appals me ? 
What hands are here ? Ha ! They pluck out mine eyes ! 
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood 
Clean from my hand ? No ; this my hand will rather 
The multitudinous seas incarnadine, 
Making the green one red. [Re-enter Lady Macbeth. 

L. Macb. My hands are of your color, but I shame 
To wear a heart so white. {Knock. ) I hear a knocking 



IMAGINATION AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 107 

At the south, entry : — retire we to our chamber : 

A little water clears us of this deed : 

How easy it is then ! Your constancy 

Hath left you unattended. — (Knocking. ) Hark ! more knocking. 

Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us, 

And show us to be watchers. Be not lost 

So poorly in your thoughts. 

Mml. To know my deed, 't were best not know myself (knock). 
Wake Duncan with thy knocking ! I would thou couldst ! 
Macbeth. Shakespeare. 



XII. IMAGINATION AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 

Imagination affects every form of expression, but its action is 
especially apparent in its modification of written language. It is 
the chief cause of figures of speech. A figure of speech is a de- 
parture from plain language, to express higher associations and 
relations of ideas, to awaken more vivid images, and to stimulate 
deeper feeling. 

This figurative action of the mind is manifest in the most famil- 
iar words. "Words are fossil poetry." Nearly all our words 
have been derived from some action of the imagination, and hold 
still an element of poetic expression. " He who first spake of a 
dilapidated fortune, " says Archbishop Trench, " what an image 
must have risen up before his mind's eye of some falling house 
or palace, stone detaching itself from stone, till all had gradually 
sunk into desolation and ruin ! Or he who to that Greek worct 
which signifies 'that which will endure to be held up to and 
judged by sunlight, ' gave first its ethical signification of ' sincere, ' 
'truthful,' or, as we sometimes say, ' transparent, ' can we deny 
to him the poet's feeling and eye ? Many a man had gazed, we 
are sure, at the jagged and indented mountain ridges of Spain, 
before one called them ' sierras, ' or ' saws, ' — the name by which 
now they are known, as Sierra Morena, Sierra Nevada ; but that 
man coined his imagination into a word which will endure as long 
as the everlasting hills which he named." Take the names of 
flowers or of animals, or almost any class of words, and from 
their etymology it can be easily seen that they have been derived 
from imaginative conceptions. 



108 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

A more apparent effect of imagination on language is seen in 
the various rhetorical figures which especially characterize all 
poetic verbal expression. 

There have been many .attempts to find a common principle 
underlying all figures. Without reviewing the many speculations, 
possibly the chief figures are due to two mental acts which are 
more or less the result of imagination. One is comparison. We 
compare the unknown with the known, and find a deeper principle 
of explanation, and so enlarge the scope of our minds. We dis- 
cover unity in the midst of variety, and this is the secret of 
beauty. The act of discrimination is one of the most fundamental 
in the mind. The discovery of analogy, and of the kinship of 
things, is implied more or less in all thinking or expression. 

The other principle is personification. Imagination makes ob- 
jects live. In our every-day speech, we are continually giving 
living attributes to physical things. To a vivid imagination noth- 
ing is dead. Many figures are at heart personifications, though we 
do not at first think of putting them under this name. 

The associative or comparative action of the imagination gives 
rise to simile, metaphor, contrast, antithesis, and many other 
figures. The other action of the mind — the power that makes 
things live — gives rise to personification, vision, apostrophe, alle- 
gory, and the like. 

The imagination is not present in the same degree in all figures. 
In some, it is hardly present at all ; in others, it is almost the only 
element. For example, in the comparison of images, — the more 
complete the union, the greater will be the abandon to the imagi- 
nation. For this reason, there is usually more imaginative action 
in metaphors than in similes; the union is more immediate, and 
the identification more complete. 

Again, the imagination is more active where there is delicate 
allusion, or suggestion of some pictures, which brings about a 
union of the most complex ideas, suddenly discovers similarity, 
and causes great pleasure. 

The healing of the seamless dress is by our beds of pain ; 
"We touch him in life's throng and press, and we are whole again. 
Our Master. Whittier. 



IMAGINATION AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 109 

The figures of speech have been so carefully defined and so 
often illustrated that the student need only refer to his rhetoric 
for information. While it is very important to analyze and be 
able to recognize all rhetorical figures, the student should remem- 
ber that the power to do so does not presuppose any imaginative 
action, or any power to use such figures. 

There should not be too much analysis and naming of figures. 
A certain amount of this work is helpful, but too much may make 
the study mechanical. 

The best way to simplify or to understand figures, is to study 
the action of the imagination which creates them. The means of 
developing the power to use them consist in stimulating the cre- 
ative and artistic faculties of the mind, to cause their use in 
speaking or writing, and such an appreciation of their force as will 
enable them to be rendered by the voice. 

Problem XV. Arrange short illustrations of all the rhetorical figures, 
and render their spirit by vocal expression. 

Into her dream he melted, as the rose 

Blendeth its odours with the violet. 

Keats. 

One night, after ten hours' walking, I reached a little dwelling quite 

by itself at the bottom of a narrow valley which was about to throw 

itself into the sea a league farther on. 

Guy de Maupassant. 

E'en at the last I have her still, 

With her delicious eyes as clear as heaven 

When rain in a quick shower has beat down mist, 

And clouds float white in the sun like broods of swans. 

Browning. 

On poured the Trojan masses ; in the van 

Hector straight forward drove in full career, — • 

As some huge bowlder, from its rocky bed 

Detached, and by the wintry torrent's force 

Hurled down the steep cliff's face, when constant rains 

The massive rock's firm hold have undermined : 

With giant bounds it flies ; the crashing wood 

Resounds beneath it ; still it hurries on, 

Until, arriving at the level plain, 

Its headlong impulse checked, it rolls no more. 

Homer. 



110 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

i For the main criminal I have no hope 

Except in such a suddenness of fate. 

I stood at Naples once, a night so dark 

I could have scarce conjectured there was earth 

Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all : 

But the night's black was burst through by a blaze — 

Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, 

Through her whole length of mountain visible : 

There lay the city thick and plain with spires, 

And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea. 

So may the truth be flashed out by one blow, 

And Guido see, one instant, and be saved. 

Browning. 



As the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the 
things that are sown in it to spring forth : so the Lord God will cause 
righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. 



'T is her breathing that 
Perfumes the chamber thus : the flame o' the taper 
Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids 
To see th' enclosed lights, now canopied 
Under these windows — white and azure — laced 
With blue of heaven's own tint. 
Cymbeline. Shakespeare. 



In yonder grave a Druid lies, 

Where slowly winds the stealing wave, 
The year's best sweets shall duteous rise 

To deck its poet's sylvan grave. . . . 
Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore, 

When Thames in summer wreaths is drest, 
And oft suspend the dashing oar 

To bid his gentle spirit rest. 



Collins. 



She dwelt among the untrodden ways beside the springs of Dove ; 

A maid whom there were none to praise, and very few to love. 

A violet by a mossy stone half -hidden from the eye ! 

Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky. 

She lived unknown, and few could know when Lucy ceased to be ; 

But she is in her grave, and oh the difference to me ! 

Wordsworth. 



IMAGINATION AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. Ill 

See this our new retreat 
Walled in with a sloped mound of matted shrubs, 
Dark, tangled, old, and green, still sloping down 
To a small pool whose waters lie asleep 
Amid the trailing boughs turned water-plants : 
And tall trees over-arch to keep us in, 
Breaking the sunbeams into emerald shafts ; 
And in the dreamy water one small group 
Of two or three strange trees are got together 
Wondering at all around, as strange beasts herd 
Together far from their own land : all wildnessf 
No turf nor moss, for boughs and plants pave all, 
And tongues of bank go shelving in the waters. 
Pauline. Browning. 

Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 

Deeply buried from human eyes ; 

And in the hereafter, angels may 

Roll the stone from its grave away. 

Whitiier. 



And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong. 

The member did his party all the harm in his power : he spoke for 
it, and voted against it. 

Where snow falls, there is freedom. 

He cannot see the wood for trees. 

Daughter of heaven, fair art thou ! The silence of thy face is pleas- 
ant. Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue 
course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, Moon! 

Ossian. 



A-floating, a-floating across the sleepless sea, 
All night I heard a singing bird upon the topmost tree. 
" Oh, came you from the isles of Greece or from the banks of Seine ; 
Or off some tree in forests free, which fringe the western main ? " 
" I came not of the old world, nor yet from off the new ; 
But I am one of the birds of God which sing the whole night through." 
" Oh, sing and wake the dawning ! Oh, whistle for the wind ! 
The night is long, the current strong, my boat it lags behind." 
" The current sweeps the old world, the current sweeps the new; 
The wind will blow, the dawn will glow, ere thou hast sailed them through." 
A Myth. Charles Kingsley. 



112 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

A good method of studying figures is to take some great poem, 
such as Wordsworth's " Ode on Immortality, " and read it many 
times. On the first reading, note the beauty of the entire poem ; 
then meditate over every line and phrase, seeing and realizing the 
process of the author's mind in each specific picture; then after- 
wards it may be well to go over the whole, and mark or name as 
far as possible the various figures. It is important to study a poem 
from as many points of view as possible. Careful study of the 
figures may bring us into contact with new beauties. The poem 
should be learned, and its every picture contemplated and medi- 
tated over, till its real beauties dawn upon the mind, till the 
imagination has recreated its life and spirit. Lines and images 
of the poem will haunt the mind for years, continually growing 
in beauty and depth of meaning. 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight 
To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
It is not now as it hath been of yore ; — 
Turn wheresoe'er 1 may, 
By night or day, 
The things which I have seen, I now can see no more. 

The rainbow comes and goes, and lovely is the rose ; 

The moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare ; 
Waters on a starry night 
Are beautiful and fair ; 
The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 
But yet I know, where'er I go, 
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. 

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, 
And while the young lambs bound 

As to the tabor's sound, 
To me alone there came a thought of grief : 
A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 

And I again am strong. 
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep ; — 
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong : 



IMAGINATION AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 113 

I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, 
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, 
And all the earth is gay ; 
Land and sea 
Give themselves up to jollity, 
And with the heart of May 
Doth every beast keep holiday ; — 
Thou child of joy, 
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy ! 

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call 

Ye to each other make ; I see 
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; 

My heart is at your festival, 
My head hath its coronal — 
The fullness of your bliss, I feel, I feel it all. 

evil day ! if I were sullen 
While Earth herself is adorning, 

This sweet May-morning, 
And the children are culling 

On every side 
In a thousand valleys far and wide 
Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm, 
And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm : — 

1 hear, I hear, with joy I hear ! 

— But there 's a tree, of many one, 
A single field which I have looked upon, — 
Both of them speak of something that is gone : 
The pansy at my feet 
Doth the same tale repeat : 
Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? 
Where is it now, the glory and the dream ? 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; 
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar ; 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 

From God, who is our home : 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his iov : 

j y, g 



114 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The Youth, who daily farther from the east 
Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 
And by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended : 
At length the Man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day. 

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; 

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 

And, even with something of a mother's mind 
And no unworthy aim, 
The homely nurse doth all she can 

To make her foster-child, her inmate, Man, 
Forget the glories he hath known, 

And that imperial palace whence he came. 

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, 
A six years' darling of a pigmy size ! 
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, 
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, 
With light upon him from his father's eyes ! 
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 
Some fragment from his dream of human life, 
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art ; 
A wedding or a festival, 
A mourning or a funeral ; 

And this hath now his heart, 
And unto this he frames his song : 
Then will he fit his tongue 
To dialogues of business, love, or strife ; 
But it will not be long 
Ere this be thrown aside, 
And with new joy and pride 
The little actor cons another part ; 
Filling from time to time his "humorous stage 
"With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 
That life brings with her in her equipage ; 
As if his whole vocation 
"Were endless imitation. 

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 

Thy soul's immensity ! 
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep 
Thy heritage ! thou eye among the blind, 
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, 
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, — 



IMAGINATION AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 115 

Mighty Prophet ! Seer blest ! 

On whom those truths do rest 
Which we are toiling all our lives to find, 
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ! 
Thou, over whom thy Immortality 
Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, 
A Presence which is not to be put by ! 
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life ! 

joy ! that in our embers 

Is something that doth live, 
That Nature yet remembers 
What was so fugitive ! 
The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benediction : not indeed 
For that which is most worthy to be blest, 
Delight and liberty, the simple creed 
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, 
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast : — 
— Not for these I raise the song of thanks and praise ; 
But for those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
Blank misgivings of a creature 
Moving about in worlds not realized, 
High instincts, before which our mortal nature 
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised : 
But for those first affections, 
Those shadowy recollections, 
Which, be they what they may, 
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 
Are yet a master light of all our seeing ; 

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake, 

To perish never ; 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, 

Nor man nor boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
Can utterly abolish or destroy ! 



116 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Hence in a season of calm weather 
Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither — 
Can in a moment travel thither, 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song ! 
And let the young lambs bound 
As to the tabor's sound ! 
We in thought will join your throng, 
Ye that pipe and ye that play, 
Ye that through your hearts to-day 
Feel the gladness of the May ! 
What though the radiance which was once so bright 
Be now for ever taken from my sight, 
Though nothing can bring back the hour 
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower ; 
We will grieve not, rather find 
Strength in what remains behind ; 
In the primal sympathy 
Which, having been, must ever be ; 
In the soothing thoughts that spring 
Out of human suffering ; 
In the faith that looks through death, 
In years that bring the philosophic mind. 

And 0, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, 

Forebode not any severing of our loves ! 

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ; 

I only have relinquished one delight 

To live beneath your more habitual sway : 

I love the brooks which down their channels fret, 

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ; 

The innocent brightness of a new-born day 

Is lovely yet ; 
The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a sober coloring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; 
Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears — 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 



Wordsworth. 



FORMS OF POETRY. 117 

life, above the rest 
In shape and gesture proudly eminent, 
Stood like a tower : his form had yet not lost 
All -her original brightness ; nor appear'd 
Less than arch-angel ruin'd, and the excess 
Of glory obscur'd : as when the sun, new risen, 
Looks through the horizontal misty air 
Shorn of his beams ; or from behind the moon, 
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds 
On half the nations, and with fear of change 
Perplexes monarchs. Darken'd so, yet shone 
Above them all the arch-angel : but his face 
Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care 
Sat on his faded cheek ; but under brows 
Of dauntless courage and considerate pride, 

"Waiting revenge. 

Milton. 



XIII. FORMS OF POETRY. 

As analytic definitions of poetry have never been satisfactory ; as 
reason cannot explain imagination, nor science, poetry, — so ade- 
quate discriminations have rarely been made between lyric, epic, 
dramatic, and other forms of poetry. But the reader must feel 
and definitely manifest such differences through the natural lan- 
guages, by realizing and expressing the imaginative and emotional 
activities of which these forms are the embodiment in words. 
Hence, a few suggestions may be given to assist or initiate the 
study of their essential nature. 

A lyric is subjective and personal; it is the result of a vivid 
realization of some simple and specific situation. It is distinct 
from ballad poetry, which is narrative, and which produces its effect 
by a sequence of events. A lyric holds our interest by the pulsa- 
tion of thought and feeling in the realization of this one idea or 
situation. Other pictures, situations, or events are brought up in 
contrast, or in some way are related to the one specific or govern- 
ing event or idea. It may be the revelation of the love or ten- 
derness of the human heart for- some other soul, of the deepest 
experience face to face with great sorrow or great sin. It may 
be the expression of admiration for Nature, or of the worship of 



118 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

God. Songs, hymns, and odes are forms of the lyric. They are 
nearly always short; and on account of their shortness, they are 
nearly always concentrated and intense. 

There are an innumerable number of lyrics in the language; 
but, unfortunately, they are not often found in our school-readers. 
But a student can find large numbers of them in various collec- 
tions ; or, what is better, he can himself go to the great masters of 
poetry, where he will always find lyrics. 

The Psalms are the most exalted examples of lyric expression. 
The reason is that they are the manifestation of an individual soul 
exalted or awakened by a thought of the Supreme Being. The 
nobility of the ideas, the simplicity and tenderness of the expres- 
sion, the depth of insight, and the intensity of the passion have 
made these Psalms a medium of worship for the whole race. 

Lyrics are the simplest of all forms of imaginative expression. 
They should, therefore, be first mastered by the student of vocal 
expression. AVhen rightly practised, they have a wonderful effect 
upon the voice, tending to remove harshness, and developing sym- 
pathetic vibration and texture. The practice of a lyric tends to 
make the whole body, as well as the voice, responsive and flexible, 
and to bring them into sympathetic unity with the mind ; such an 
exercise stimulates the breathing, and especially joyous lyrics fur- 
nish an exercise of untold value for health. Lyrics have been 
shown by the ablest authorities, such as Professor iSTorton, to be 
the most effective means of developing the imagination and the 
artistic nature. They develop insight; they secure the power to 
hold the mind in one simple specific situation ; they secure control 
of feeling. They are short, and can be remembered and practised 
anywhere. 

To read a lyric calls for such a vigorous exercise of the imagina- 
tion as to awaken the reader's whole nature. The only way any- 
thing is made poetic is by intensity of realization. The reader 
must bring his imagination and whole nature to bear upon the 
specific situation until the thought and impulse are made personal 
and the expression spontaneous. All lyric art, especially poetry, 
must be the inevitable effect of the life and feeling caused by one 
situation. 



FORMS OF POETRY. 119 

Epic poetry is thought by many to be the most exalted form of 
poetry. It deals with a great era or epoch; it creates or portrays 
national types. It creates an Achilles as the representative or 
ideal of the Greeks, of their warlike spirit, their love of inde- 
pendence; it creates an Odysseus as the embodiment of that great 
people's conception of temperance, or " patience under trial by 
pleasure, " long-suffering, and fortitude, or " patience under trial by 
pain, " — and so the Iliad and the Odyssey became a kind of Bible 
for the religion of a race. The epic is considered the most exalted 
form of poetry, because it unfolds not the ideal of an individual, 
but the ideal of a race. It portrays the subjective and objective 
combats of men ; shows the individual and the nation their charac- 
ter and feeling, their struggles, failures, and successes. 

The great epics are few, — such as the Iliad and the Odyssey, 
the iEneid, the Niebelungen Lied, the Divina Comedia, the 
Lusiad, Jerusalem Delivered, Paradise Lost; but narratives, tales, 
ballads, historical poems, and prose fiction are usually considered 
as belonging to lower forms of the epic. The highest epic work 
of the nineteenth century is possibly the " History of the French 
Revolution, " by Carlisle. 

The vocal rendering of the epic must be full of dignity. It 
must be ideal and noble ; there must be simplicity and tenderness, 
deep emotions which are serious and noble, and which are felt by 
the whole race. Characters must be seen and felt as if alive ; but 
they must also be typical. The whole nature of man must be 
awakened, and yet the expression must be extremely simple. 

Dramatic poetry is objective. It is the human soul identifying 
itself with the point of view, the character, the feeling, the sur- 
roundings of another soul. It is the action or movement which 
is the expression of character; it is the conflict of soul with soul. 
It deals with the success or failure of life. Dramatic art deals 
with the motives and characteristics of men, and interprets the 
processes of developing or perverting character. 

The lyric, the epic, and the dramatic are rarely separated com- 
pletely from one another. In Homer's Iliad and Odyssey many 
of the dialogues are essentially dramatic. The finest parts of 
Milton's " Paradise Lost " are the lyrical outbursts of passion. 



120 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The Chorus was a lyric element which had a prominent place in 
the Greek drama. The lyrics in Shakespeare do not represent, 
as the Greek drama does, the audience, but are placed directly 
upon the stage as occasional songs. In Shakespeare's " Henry V., " 
where there are narrative links between the acts spoken by a so- 
called Chorus, there is an approach to the epic. 

So akin are these forms of poetry that the reader must be able 
to render them all, in order to give any one form well. Dramatic 
without the lyric is apt to . be imitative, and the lyric without the 
epic is apt to be too subjective. The true reader must, therefore, 
develop the mental and emotional action which causes these forms 
of poetry. 

In speaking of the two forms of poetical impulse, — dramatic 
imagination and lyric or egoistic imagination, — Mr. Theodore 
Watts has made some valuable remarks which should be carefully 
weighed by the student of vocal expression : " The nature of this 
absolute vision, or true dramatic imagination, is easily seen if we 
compare the dramatic work of writers without absolute vision — 
such as Calderon, Goethe, Ben Jonson, Fletcher, and others — 
with the dramatic work of iEschylus and of Shakespeare. While 
of the former group it may be said that each poet skilfully works 
his imagination, of iEschylus and Shakespeare it must be said that 
each in his highest dramatic mood does not work, but is worked 
by, his imagination. Note, for instance, how the character of 
Clytaemnestra grows and glows under the hand of iEschylus. The 
poet of the Odyssey had distinctly said that iEgisthus, her para- 
mour, had struck the blow; but the dramatist, having imagined 
the greatest tragic female in all poetry, finds it impossible to let a 
man like iEgisthus assist such a woman in a homicide so daring 
and so momentous. And when in that terrible speech of hers she 
justifies her crime (ostensibly to the outer world, but really to her 
own conscience), the way in which, by the sheer magnetism of 
irresistible personality, she draws our sympathy to herself and her 
crime is unrivalled out of Shakespeare, and not surpassed even 
there. In the great drama — in the Agamemnon, in Othello, in 
Hamlet, in Macbeth — there is an imagination at work whose 
laws are inexorable, are inevitable, as the laws by the operation 



FORMS OF POETRY. 121 

of which the planets move round the sun. " In another part of 
his essay, this high authority has said : " The artist's power of 
thought is properly shown not in the direct enunciation of ideas, 
but in mastery over motive. " That is to say, the imagination is 
roused by the concentration of the mind of the writer upon the 
motive springs of character, and of his drama or story. 

All this applies with double force to one who seeks to give 
expression to these sublime works. There must be a vision cre- 
ated by the dramatic imagination of the reader in epic or the 
higher dramatic forms of poetry, and a vivid scene so intensely 
realized and felt as to cause the inevitable modulations of the 
voice. The reader must not use or " skilfully work " his imagina- 
tion; he must be moved by his imagination. The delicate textures, 
colors, and modulations of the voice, the supple actions of the face 
and of the body must be the direct result of poetic impulses. 

As has been said, the full realization of the differences between 
the various forms of poetry cannot be attained by mere discussion. 
Poetry, like all art, must be felt and realized by each individual 
soul ; for art is personal. It is " intrinsic, not extrinsic. " It is only 
its surface that can be explained. The art faculties are too deep for 
complete rational analysis ; their nature and energy must be felt 
in their exercise. Hence in the struggle to comprehend and to 
render any passage, the silent meditation over the masterpieces of 
poetry, followed by the effort to give them vocal interpretation, 
furnishes the best means of enabling any one to understand and to 
appreciate the essential nature of the sublimest forms of imagina- 
tive creation. 

Problem XVI. Render passages from every form of poetry and litera- 
ture, and note the peculiar action of the imagination in each case. 

SONG. 

Ah ! my heart is pained with throbbing, 
Throbbing for the May, — 
Throbbing for the seaside billows, 
Or the water-wooing willows, 

Where in laughing and in sobbing 

Glide the streams away. 
Ah ! my heart, my heart is throbbing, 
Throbbing for the May. 



■■ 



122 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Waiting, sad, dejected, weary, 
Waiting for the May, 
Spring goes by with wasted warnings, 
Moonlit evenings, sunbright mornings : 
Summer comes, yet dark and drear} 7 , 

Life still ebbs away ; 

Man is ever weary, weary, 

Waiting for the May. 



THE BROOKSIDE. 

I wandered by the brookside, I wandered by the mill, — 
I could not hear the brook flow, the noisy wheel was still ; 
There was no burr of grasshopper, nor chirp of any bird, 
But the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard. 

I sat beneath the elm-tree, I watched the long, long shade, 
And as it grew still longer I did not feel afraid ; 
For I listened for a footfall, I listened for a word, — 
But the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard. 

He came not, — no, he came not : the night came on alone ; 

The little stars sat one by one, each on his golden throne ; 

The evening air passed by my cheek, the leaves above were stirred, — 

But the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard. 

Fast silent tears were flowing, when something stood behind : 
A hand was on my shoulder, — I knew its touch was kind : 
It drew me nearer — nearer, — we did not speak one word, 
For the beating of our own hearts was all the sound we heard. 

Lord Houghton. 

How amiable are thy tabernacles, 

Lord of hosts ! 

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord ; 

My heart and my flesh cry out unto the living God. 

Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, 

And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, 

Even thine altars, Lord of hosts, 

My King, and my God. 

Blessed are they that dwell in thy house : 

They will be still praising thee [Selah. 

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, 

In whose heart are the high ways to Zion. 

Passing through the valley of Weeping they make it a place of springs ; 



FORMS OF POETRY. 123 

Yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings. 

They go from strength to strength, 

Every one of them appeareth before God in Zion. 

Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer : 
Give ear, God of Jacob [Selah. 

Behold, God our shield, 

And look upon the face of thine anointed. 

For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. 

1 had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God 
Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 

For the Lord God is a sun and a shield : 

The Lord will give grace and glory : 

No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. 

O Lord of hosts, 

Blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. 

Psalm Ixxxiv 

But up Achilles rose, the lov'd of Heaven ; 

And Pallas on his mighty shoulders cast 

The shield of Jove ; and round about his head 

She put the glory of a golden mist, 

From which there burnt a fiery-flaming light. 

And as, when smoke goes heavenward from a town, 

In some far island which its foes besiege, 

"Who all day long with dreadful martialness 

Have poured from their own town ; soon as the sun 

Has set, thick lifted fires are visible, 

"Which, rushing upward, make a light in the sky, 

And let the neighbors know who may perhaps 

Bring help across the sea, — so from the head 

Of great Achilles went up an effulgence. 

Upon the trench he stood, without the wall, 

But mix'd not with the Greeks, for he rever'd 

His mother's word : and so, thus standing there, 

He shouted ; and Minerva, to his shout, 

Added a dreadful cry ; and there arose 

Among the Trojans an unspeakable tumult. 

And as the clear voice of a trumpet, blown 

Against a town by spirit-withering foes, 

So sprang the clear voice of ^Eacides. 

And when they heard the brazen cry, their hearts 

All leap'd within them ; and the proud-maned horses 

Ran with the chariots round, for they foresaw 



124 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Calamity ; and the charioteers were smitten, 
When they beheld the ever-active fire 
Upon the dreadful head of the great-minded one 
Burning ; for bright-eyed Pallas made it burn. 
Thrice o'er the trench divine Achilles shouted ; 
And thrice the Trojans and their great allies 
Roll'd back ; and twelve of all their noblest men 
Then perish'd, crush'd by their own arms and chariots. 
Iliad, book xviii. 203-231. Homer. 

He has witnessed overhead the infinite Deep, with greater and lesser 
lights, bright-rolling, silent-beaming, hurled forth by the hand of God ; 
around him and under his feet, the wonderfullest Earth, with her winter 
snow-storms and her summer spice-airs, and (unaccountablest of all) him- 
self standing here. He stood in the lapse of Time ; he saw Eternity 
behind him and before him. The all-circling mysterious tide of Force, 
thousand-fold (for from force of thought to force of gravitation what an 
interval !) billowed shoreless on ; bore him along, — he too was part of 
it. From its bosom rose and vanished in perpetual change the lordliest 
Real-Phantasmagory (which was Being) ; and ever anew rose and van- 
ished ; and ever that lordliest many-colored scene w r as full, another yet 
the same. Oak-trees fell, young acorns sprang : men too, new-sent from 
the Unknown, he met, of tiniest size, w r ho waxed into stature, into 
strength of sinew, passionate fire and light : in other men the light was 
growing dim, the sinews all feeble ; they sank, motionless, into ashes, 
into invisibility ; returned back to the Unknown, beckoning him their 
mute farewell. He wanders still by the parting spot ; cannot hear 
them ; they are far, how far ! It was sight for angels and archangels ; 

for, indeed, God himself had made it wholly. 

Carlyle. 

LAST APPEARANCE OF LADY MACBETH. 

Doctor. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth 
in your report. When was it she last walked ? 

Gentlewoman. Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise 
from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth 
paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to 
bed ; yet all this while in a most fast sleep. 

Doc. A great perturbation in nature ! to receive at once the benefit of 
sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her 
walking, and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard 
her say ? 



FORMS OF POETRY. 125 

Gen. That, sir, which I will not report after her. 

Doc. You may, to me ; and 't is most meet you should. 

Gen. Neither to you, nor any one, — having no witness to confirm my 
speech. [Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper.'] Lo you, here she comes ! This 
is her very guise ; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her ; stand close. 

Doc. How came she by that light ? 

Gen. Why, it stood by her : she has light by her continually ; 't is her 
command. 

Doc. You see, her eyes are open. 

Gen. Ay, but their sense is shut. 

Doc. "What is it she does now ? Look, how she rubs her hands. 

Gen. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her 
hands : I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. 

Lady Macbeth. Yet, here 's a spot. 

Doc. Hark ! she speaks : I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy 
my remembrance the more strongly. 

L. Macb. Out, damned spot ! out, I say ! — One ; two : why, then 't is 
time to do *t. — Hell is murky ! — Fie, my lord, fie ! a soldier, and afeard ? 
What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account ? 
— Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in 
him? 

Doc. Do you mark that ? 

L. Macb. The thane of Fife had a wife : where is she now ? — What, 
will these hands ne'er be clean ? — No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that : 
you mar all with this starting. 

Doc. Go to, go to ! you have known what you should not. 

Gen. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that : Heaven 
knows what she has known. < 

L. Macb. Here 's the smell of the blood still : all the perfumes of Arabia 
will not sweeten this little hand. Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! 

Doc. What a sigh is there ! the heart is sorely charged. 

Gen. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the 
whole body. 

Doc. Well, well, well, — 

Gen. Pray God, it be, sir. 

Doc. This disease is beyond my practice : yet I have known those which 
walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. 

L. Macb. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown ; look not so pale : — 
I tell you yet again, Banquo 's buried ; he cannot come out of his grave. 

Doc. Even so ? 

L. Macb. To bed, to bed ! there 's knocking at the gate. Come, come, 
come, come ! give me your hand. What 's done cannot be undone : to bed, 
to bed, to bed ! [Exit Lady Macbeth. 






126 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Doc. Will she go now to bed ? 

Gen. Directly. 

Doc. Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds 

Do breed unnatural troubles : infected minds 

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. 

More needs she the divine than the physician. — 

God, God, forgive us all ! Look after her ; 

Remove from her the means of all annoyance, 

And still keep eyes upon her : — so, good-night. 

My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight : 

I think, but dare not speak. 
# Shakespeare. 



XIV. DEGREES OF IMAGINATION. 

Not only is imagination characteristic of all art and poetry, of all 
eloquence and beauty ; not only is it the faculty which gives insight 
into the spiritual essence and loveliness of Nature and of all forms 
of human production, — but the degree of imagination is also the 
test of greatness in art. The greater the activity of imagination 
embodied in a work of art, or awakened by its contemplation, the 
higher the rank of that work. 

Art has been divided into the Beautiful, the Poetic, and the 
Sublime. A painting, a poem, or a story may have the simplest 
subject for its theme. A painting may represent a mere reflection 
of light upon a barn, and be beautiful. A poem upon a daisy or a 
bluebird may be imaginative and pleasing. Tbe greatness of a 
work of art is not dependent upon its subject except in so far as 
this subject is a means of revealing insight. When such an object 
as a pool of water or some aspect of light and shade is the motive 
of a painting, or a brook the subject of a poem, the imagination 
may be present and the work may be made beautiful ; but it is not 
the highest exercise of the faculty. 

But whenever the human soul is portrayed with an object, 
though it be a mere pool of water; whenever the object becomes a 
mirror of the heart of man, of his love of Nature, his gloom or his 
hope, his earnestness, his sincerity, and his realization of life and 
the universe, — art then becomes poetic. Anything is poetic in 
proportion as the human soul becomes the central element. Hu- 



DEGREES OF IMAGINATION. 127 

man loves, human interests, human suffering and aspiration, these 
are really the subjects of poetry. Outward objects are the mere 
means of expression 

Art, however, can go further. It is sublime in proportion as 
the human element preponderates. In beautiful art the natural 
preponderates. In poetic art the human and the natural elements 
are in equipoise. In sublime art the human preponderates over 
the medium or the language, which is suggestive and in the back- 
ground. In sublime art the idea is all absorbing; it must be so 
great as to overshadow the form ; it must lift the soul above and 
beyond any external object or accident. 

Science, it is said, is always impersonal. Art is always personal. 
Great'art is dependent upon the ascendency of the personal element 
over the impersonal. 

It is the imagination that makes the universe personal; that 
" conforms the outward show of things to the desires of the mind; " 
that penetrates below mere facts to truth; that throws aside all 
superficial accidents. It is the imagination that enables the human 
mind to disengage itself from a prison of literal facts. 

The whole struggle for expression is, after all, dependent upon 
the manifestations of the soul through the tones and modulations 
of the voice and the body. Whenever the imagination and the pas- 
sions are united, and the voice and the body are made subordinate, 
or brought into such control that the action of imagination and 
feeling is at once seen through them, the first step in training has 
been taken. 

Dobson's " Song of Four Seasons " is beautiful. There is, of 
course, some imagination required, but the action of the faculty is 
not very high. But in such a poem as Gosse's " Return of the 
Swallows, " while there is not the highest activity of the imagina- 
tion, the mind is yet called upon to carry a more ideal conception. 
The same is true of Browning's " Apparitions " and " Love among 
the Ruins, " of Tennyson's " Bugle Song " and " Day Dream." But 
such, poems as Shelley's " Ode to the West Wind, " " Prometheus 
Unbound," Coleridge's " Ode to France," Wordsworth's " Ode on 
Immortality, " some portions of Job, and the Prophecy of Isaiah, 
are rightly termed sublime. 



128 



IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 



Problem XVII. — Distinguish by vocal expression that which is simply 
beautiful from that which is more profound, that which is poetic from that 
which is more sublime. 



A SONG OF THE FOUR SEASONS. 

When Spring comes laughing by vale and hill, 
By wind-flower walking and daffodil, — 
Sing stars of morning, sing morning skies, 
Sing blue of speedwell, — and my Love's eyes. 

When comes the Summer full-leaved and strong, 
And gay birds gossip the orchard long, — 
Sing hid, sweet honey that no bee sips ; 
Sing red, red roses, — and my Love's lips* 

When Autumn scatters the leaves again, 
And piled sheaves bury the broad- wheeled wain, - 
Sing flutes of harvest where men rejoice ; 
Sing rounds of reapers, — and my Love's voice. 

But when comes Winter with hail and storm, 
And red fire roaring and ingle warm, — 
Sing first sad going of friends that part : 
Then sing glad meeting, — and my Love's heart. 



Austin Dobson. 



THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOWS. 

" Out in the meadows the young grass springs, 
Shivering with sap," said the larks, "and we 

Shoot into air with our strong young wings, 
Spirally up over level and lea ; 

Come, Swallows, and fly with us, 

Now that horizons are luminous ! 

Evening and morning the world of light, 
Spreading and kindling, is infinite ! " 

Far away, by the sea in the south, 

The hills of olive and slopes of fern 
Whiten and glow in the sun's long drouth, 

Under the heavens that beam and burn j 
And all the swallows were gathered there 
Flitting about in the fragrant air, 

And heard no sound from the larks, but flew 

Flashing under the blinding blue. 



DEGREES OF IMAGINATION. 129 

Out of the depths of their soft rich throats 

Languidly fluted the thrushes, and said : 
" Musical thought in the mild air floats, 

Spring is coming and winter is dead ! 
Come, Swallows, and stir the air, 
For the buds are all bursting unaware, 

And the drooping eaves and the elm-trees long 

To hear the sound of your low sweet song. 

Over the roofs of the white Algiers, 

Flashingly shadowing the bright bazaar, 
Flitted the swallows, and not one hears 

The call of the thrushes from far, from far : 
Sighed the thrushes ; then, all at once, 
Broke out singing the old sweet tones, — 

Singing the bridal of sap and shoot, 

The tree's slow life between root and fruit. 

But just when the dingles of April flowers 

Shine with the earliest daffodils, 
When, before sunrise, the cold clear hours 

Gleam with a promise that noon fulfils, — 
Deep in the leafage the cuckoo eried, 
Perched on a spray by a rivulet-side, 

" Swallows, Swallows, come back again 

To swoop and herald the April rain." 

And something awoke in the slumbering heart 

Of the alien birds in their African air, 
And they paused, and alighted, and twittered apart, 

And met in the broad white dreamy square ; 
And the sad slave woman, who lifted up 
From the fountain her broad -lipped earthen cup, 

Said to herself, with a weary sigh, 

* ' To-morrow the swallows will northward fly ! " 

Edmund William Gosse. 

Thou deadly crater, moulded by my muse, 
Cast thou thy bronze into my bowed and wounded heart, 
And let my soul its vengeance to thy bronze impart. 
On the cannon purchased by receipts from his public readings. Victor Hugo. 



Thou who passest by, say at Lacedaemon we lie here in obedience to her 
laws. 
Inscription at Thermopile. Simonides. 



130 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

When, loved by poet and painter, the sunrise fills the sky ; 
When night's gold urns grow fainter, and in depths of amber die ; 
When the inoon-breeze stirs the curtain, bearing an odorous freight, — 
Then visions strange, uncertain, pour thick through the Ivory Gate. 

Then the oars of Ithaca dip so silently into the sea, 
That they wake not sad Calypso — and the Hero wanders free : 
He breasts the ocean-furrows, at war with the words of Fate ; 
And the blue tide's low susurrus comes up to the Ivory Gate. 

The Ivory Gate. Mortimer Collins. 

Sweet nurselings of the vernal skies, 

Bath'd in soft airs, and fed with dew, 
What more than magic in you lies, 

To fill the heart's fond view ? 
In childhood's sports, companions gay, 
In sorrow, on Life's downward way, 
How soothing ! in our last decay 
Memorials prompt and true. 

Ye dwell beside our paths and homes, — 
Our paths of sin, our homes of sorrow ; 

And guilty man, where'er he roams, 
Your innocent mirth may borrow. 

The birds of air before us fleet, 

They cannot brook our shame to meet — 

But we may taste your solace sweet, 

And come again to-morrow. 
Flowers. Keble. 

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 

Declare, if thou hast understanding. 

Who determined the measures thereof, if thou knowest ? 

Or who stretched the line upon it ? 

Whereupon were the foundations thereof fastened ? 

Or who laid the corner-stone thereof, 

When the morning stars sang together, 

And all the sons of God shouted for joy ? 

Or who shut up the sea with doors, 

When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb, — 

When I made the cloud the garment thereof, 

And thick darkness a swaddling-band for it, 

And prescribed for it my decree, 

And set bars and doors, 

And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther ; 

And here shall thy proud waves be stayed ? 

Booh of Job. 



USES OP IMAGINATION. 131 

/ 

Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; 

But whispering tongues can poison truth, 

And constancy lives in realms above ; 

And life is thorny, and youth is vain ; 

And to be wroth with one we love 

Doth work like madness in the brain. 

And thus it chanced, as I divine, 

With Roland and Sir Leoline. 

Each spake words of high disdain 

And insult to his heart's best brother : 

They parted — ne'er to meet again ! 

But never either found another 

To free the hollow heart from paining : 

They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ; 

A dreary sea now flows between, 

But neither heat nor frost nor thunder 

Shall wholly do away, I ween, 

The marks of that which once hath been. 
Christabel. Coleridge. 



XV. USES OF IMAGINATION. 

The imagination is characteristic of every form of art and liter- 
ature. There may be a poetic building or statue or painting, 
a poetic singer or reader, a poetic story in prose. Imagination is 
the faculty, poetry is the product. It is the faculty which sees 
through the actual to the ideal. It is the only power that can 
idealize the real, and realize the ideal. It is for this reason that 
imagination is so potent in the development of character. 

The functions it discharges, the uses it serves, the forms it takes, 
are innumerable. One of the earliest objective forms is the myth. 
These show the early efforts of the race to interpret natural phe- 
nomena ; the rising and the setting of the sun, the drifting clouds, 
the wandering and changing moon, embody the universal concep- 
tions of the meaning of human life. The mythopoeic instinct is an 
action of the imagination, and while many myths may have come 
down from barbarous ages and contain elements of cruelty, they 
are the products of this faculty. The myth is a struggle of the 
imagination to interpret life and to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. 



132 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The mythopoeic faculty is supposed by many to be lost in modern 
civilization ; but the same power that created the myth of Apollo, 
or traced the meaning of Athene and the Dawn, is still active in 
man's mind. We still speak of the dawn of a new civilization. 
" Morning " has an imaginative and poetical as well as a literal 
meaning. 

Again, folk-lore and fairy tales are the products of the imagi- 
nation ; and poets of our own day, consciously or unconsciously, 
often adopt the same form for the interpretation of the truth. 
Tennyson's " Day-Dream " is a part of his embodiment of the old 
fairy story of the Sleeping Beauty. 

THE DEPARTURE. 

And on her lover's arm she leant, 

And round her waist she felt it fold, 
And far across the hills they went 

In that new world which is the old : 
Across the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
And deep into the dying day 

The happy princess follow'd him. 

And o'er them many a sliding star, 

And many a merry wind was borne, 
And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar, 

The twilight melted into morn. . . . 
And o'er them many a flowing range 

Of vapor buoy'd the crescent bark, 
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, 

The twilight died into the dark. 

11 A hundred summers ! can it be ? 

And whither goest thou, tell me where?" 
" Oh, seek my father's court with me, 

For there are greater wonders there." 
And o'er the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim, 

Beyond the night, across the day, 

Thro' all the world she follow'd him. 
The Day-Dream. Tennyson. 

Again, imagination is a faculty most important to oratory ; elo- 
quence is one of its most immediate manifestations. The speaker 



USES OF IMAGINATION. 133 

needs imagination for the exaltation of his theme. He must give 
" a local habitation and a name " to mystic and abstract truths, 
must feel and make others feel the truth. The most abstract idea 
must be given concrete expression. The heart cannot be moved 
without a concrete or poetic embodiment of that which would 
otherwise be vaguely and dimly realized. The most important 
truth may be so given that its entire force is lost. Truth stated 
in mere abstract terms, or expressed in cold, hard tones by the 
voice, not only fails to kindle the heart, but it may awaken doubt, 
cool enthusiasm, and cause indifference. Unless the speaker gives 
an exalted vision, he will not awaken or elevate the conceptions 
,of ordinary people. True oratory demands an active use of the 
imagination. The real office of oratory is to show truth as an 
object worthy to be sought. It aims not so much to teach or to 
give men new truth as to awaken a more vivid conception of 
a truth already known, and to stir deeper feeling, and to awaken 
a living motive for action. Oratory calls upon men to give their 
lives for their homes, for their country, or for the cause of truth. 
It aims to bring them to a more intense realization of their own 
ideals and convictions. 

Problem XVIII. Study and read selections showing various uses of the 
imagination by the historian, the speaker, the story-teller, and the poet, and 
observe their peculiarities. 

The Danube to the Severn gave 
The darken'd heart that beats no more ; 
They laid him by the pleasant shore, 

And in the hearing of the wave. 

There twice a day the Severn fills ; 

The salt sea-water passes by, 

And hushes half the babbling Wye, 

And makes a silence in the hills. 
In Memoriam. Tennyson, 

Our fathers raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of 
foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome in the height of her glory is 
not to be compared, — a power which has dotted the surface of the whole 
globe with her possessions and military posts ; whose morning drum-beat, 
following the sun in his course, and keeping pace with the hours, circles 
the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of 
England. Webster. 



134 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Agitation means liberty. As health lies in labor, and there is no 
royal road to it but through toil, so there is no republican road to safety 
but in constant distrust. " In distrust," said Demosthenes, " are the 
nerves of the mind." Let us see to it that these sentinel nerves are ever 
on the alert. If the Alps, piled in cold and still sublimity, be the 
emblem of Despotism, the ever-restless ocean is ours, which, girt within 
the eternal laws of gravitation, is pure only because never still. 

Wendell Phillips. 

To those who live by faith, everything they see speaks of that future 
world; the very glories of Nature, the sun, moon, and stars, and the rich- 
ness and the beauty of the earth, are as types and figures, witnessing and 
teaching the invisible things of God. All that we see is destined one day 
to burst forth into a heavenly bloom, and to be transfigured into immortal 
glory. Heaven at present is out of sight ; but in due time, as snow melts 
and discovers what it lay upon, so will this visible creation fade away 
before those greater splendors which are behind it, and on which at 
present it depends. In that day shadows will retire, and the substance 
show itself. The sun will grow pale and be lost in the sky, but it will 
be before the radiance of Him whom it does but image, the Sun of 
Kighteousness. . . . Our own mortal bodies will then be found in like 
manner to contain within them an inner man, which will then receive 
its due proportions, as the soul's harmonious organ, instead of the gross 
mass of flesh and blood which sight and touch are sensible of. 

Newman. 

We are like southern plants, taken up to a northern climate and 
planted in a northern soil. They grow there, but they are always failing 
of their flowers. The poor exiled shrub dreams by a native longing of 
a splendid blossom which it has never seen, but is dimly conscious that 
it ought somehow to produce. It feels like the flower which it has not 
strength to make in the half-chilled but still genuine juices of its southern 
nature. That is the way in which the ideal life, the life of full comple- 
tions, haunts us all. Nothing can really haunt us except what we have 
the beginning of, the native capacity for, however hindered, in ourselves. 
The highest angel does not tempt us because he is of another race from 
us; but God is our continual incitement because we are His children. 
So the ideal life is in our blood, and never will be still. "We feel the 
thing we ought to be beating beneath the thing we are. Every time we 
see a man who has attained our human idea a little more fully than we 
have, it wakens our languid blood and fills us with new longings. When 
we see Christ, it is as if a new plant out of the southern soil were brought 



FREEDOM OF THE IMAGINATION. 135 

suddenly in among its poor stunted, transplanted brethren, and, blossom- 
ing in their sight, interpreted to each of them the restlessness and dis- 
content which was in each of their poor hearts. When, led by Christ, 
we see God, it is as if the stunted, flowerless plants grew tall enough to 
stand up and look across all the miles that lie between, and see the glory 
of the perfect plant as it blooms in unhindered luxuriance in its southern 
home. And when we die and go to God, it is as if at last the poor shrub 
were plucked out of its exile and taken back and set where it- belonged, 
in the rich soil, under the warm sun, where the patience which it had 
learned in its long waiting should make all the deeper and richer the 
flower into which its experience was set free to find its utterance. 
The Withheld Completions of Life. Phillips Brooks, 

They gave their lives for their country, and gained for themselves a 
glory that can never fade, a tomb that shall stand as a mark forever. I 
do not mean that in which their bodies lie, but in which their renown 
lives after them, to be remembered forever on every occasion of speech 
or action which calls it to mind. For the whole earth is the grave and 
monument of heroes. It is not the mere graving upon marble in their 
native land which sets forth their deeds ; but even in lands where they 
were strangers there lives an unwritten record in every heart — felt, 
though never embodied. 
Funeral Oration. r Pericles. 



XVI. FREEDOM OF THE IMAGINATION. 

He who, having no touch of the Muse's madness in his soul, comes to 
the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of Art, — he, I 
say, and his poetry, are not admitted. Plato. 

Imagination is original ; its action differs as widely as men do. 
Compare the imagination of Milton, for example, with that of any 
other author who has written in the English language. We find 
a peculiarity in him distinct from all others. He sees all objects 
in human form. His imagination acts in accordance with the 
mythopoeic instinct of the Greeks. If he had been an artist, he 
would have been a sculptor. Take " L'Allegro, " one of the sim- 
plest of his poems. Every little relation or effect of joy is here 
embodied in a plastic form. Quips, cranks, wiles, nods, laughter, 
and care are all transformed into living beings. 



136 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest and youthful jollity, 
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, ^ 
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles 
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, 
And love to live in dimple sleek ; 
Sport that wrinkled Care derides, 
And Laughter holding both his sides, — 
Come, and trip it as you go 
On the light fantastic toe ; 
And in thy right hand lead with thee 
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty ; 
And if I give thee honour due 
Mirth, admit me of thy crew, 
To live with her, and live with thee 
In unreproved pleasures free. Milton. 

Contrast this with Wordsworth, who if he had been an artist 
would probably have been a musician. So peculiar and distinct 
is the action of Wordsworth's imagination, that Coleridge said of 
certain lines that if he had met them in the wilds of Africa, he 
would have cried out " Wordsworth ! " 

I heard a stock-dove sing, or say, 

His homely tale this very day ; 

His voice was buried among trees, 

Yet to be come at by the breeze ; 

He did not cease, but cooed and cooed, 

And somewhat pensively he wooed : 

He sang of love with quiet blending, 

Slow to begin, and never ending ; 

Of serious faith and inward glee : 

That was the song — the song for me ! 

Wordsworth. 

How different is the imagination of Shelley I If he had been 
an artist, he would certainly have been a painter. No one but a 
painter's eye could have seen this beautiful picture : — 

"We paused beside the pools that lie under the forest bough ; 

Each seemed as 't were a little sky gulfed in a world below, — 

A firmament of purple light, which in the dark earth lay, 

More boundless than the depth of night, and purer than the day ; 

In which the lovely forests grew, as in the upper air, 

More perfect both in shape and hue than any spreading there. 



FREEDOM OF THE IMAGINATION. 137 

There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, and through the dark green wood 

The white sun twinkling like the dawn out of a speckled cloud. 

Sweet views, which in our world above can never well be seen, 

Were imaged by the water's love of that fair forest green. 

And all was interfused beneath with an Elysian glow, 

An atmosphere without a breath, a softer day below. 

Like one beloved the scene had lent to the dark water's breast 

Its every leaf and lineament with more than truth exprest, 

Until an envious wind crept by, like an unwelcome thought, 

Which from the mind's too faithful eye blots one dear image out. 



THE WORLD'S WANDERERS. 

Tell me, thou Star, whose wings of light 
Speed thee in thy fiery flight, 
In what cavern of the night 

Will thy pinions close now ? 

Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray 
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way, 
In what depth of night or day 
Seekest thou repose now ? 

Weary Wind, who wanderest 

Like the world's rejected guest, 

Hast thou still some secret nest 

On the tree or billow ? 
A Fragment. Shelley. 

Now, if the imagination acts differently in each author, it must 
act differently in each reader. A reader must be free to use his 
imagination in his own way ; and true education will not interfere 
with his freedom, but will rather seek to develop differences and 
peculiarities. 

Imagination is not limited to any set of subjects. It may deal 
with a simple description, or with a deep philosophic truth. It 
may serve to lift the most familiar and commonplace objects into 
right relations with the infinite and eternal; or it may touch 
the most profound truth, and bring it home to the heart. 

Then, again, one author may lift his whole poem to an exalted 
height. In all his poems Tennyson " pitches the style at a 
high artistic level, from which he never once descends. Image 
follows image, picture succeeds picture, — each perfect, rich in color, 



138 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

clear in outline." Every line satisfies the most fastidious taste. 
Imagination envelops the whole. You do not pick out single 
lines as gems from Tennyson as you do from other authors. His 
imagination is concerned more in giving the whole an exaltation 
and coloring rather than in producing transcendent beauties in 
particular phrases or lines or passages. 

ART AND SORROW. 

On that last night before we went 

From out the doors where I was bred, 

I dreamed a vision of the dead, 
"Which left my after-morn content. 

Methought I dwelt within a hall, 

And maidens with me : distant hills 

From hidden summits fed with rills 
A river sliding by the wall. 

The hall with harp and carol rang. 

They sang of what is wise and good 

And graceful. In the centre stood 
A statue veiled, to which they sang ; 

And which, tho' veiled, was known to me, — 

The shape of him I loved, and love 

Forever : then flew in a dove 
And brought a summons from the sea. 

And when they learnt that I must go, 
They wept and wailed, but led the way 
To where a little shallop lay 

At anchor in the flood below ; 

And on by many a level mead, 

And shadowing bluff that makes the banks, 
We glided winding under ranks 

Of iris, and the golden weed ; 

And still as vaster grew the shore, 

And rolled the floods in grander space, 
The maidens gathered strength and grace 

And presence, lordlier than before ; 

And I myself, who sat apart 

And watched them, waxed in every limb ; 
I felt the thews of Anakim, 

The pulses of a Titan's heart : 



FREEDOM OF THE IMAGINATION. 139 

As one would sing the death of war, 

And one would chant the history 

Of that great race which is to be, 
And one the shaping of a star ; 

Until the forward-creeping tides 
Began to foam, and we to draw 
From deep to deep, to where we saw 

A great ship lift her shining sides. 

The man we loved was there on deck, 

But thrice as large a man he bent 

To greet us. Up the side I went, 
And fell in silence on his neck. 

"Whereat those maidens with one mind 
Bewailed their lot : I did them wrong. 
" We served thee here," they said, " so long, 

And wilt thou leave us now behind ? " 

So rapt I was, they could not win 

An answer from my lips ; but he 

Replying, " Enter likewise ye 
And go with us : " they entered in. 

And while the wind began to sweep 
A music out of sheet and shroud, 
We steered her toward a crimson cloud 

That land-like swept along the deep. 
In Memoriam. Tennyson. 

How different it is with Wordsworth ! In his verse the most 
commonplace lines can be found ; but occasionally the imagination 
has sudden flashes that seem to come from the very heart of Nature 
or the depth of the poet's soul. 

Some one has said that Tennyson moves ever upon the moun- 
tain tops, but that Wordsworth quietly and simply descends to the 
smallest nooks and valleys. His course is more uneven; he is 
concerned in a truly simple and natural way with the very least 
objects, while arising at times to the sublimest heights. 

Note, for example, in the following extract, how quietly and 
simply he discusses a most ordinary event, and then toward the 
close how he suddenly passes with such imaginative force to the 
"central peace, subsisting at the heart of endless agitation." 



140 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

I have seen 
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract 
Of inland ground, applying to his ear 
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell ; 
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul 
Listened intensely ; and his countenance soon 
Brightened with joy ; for from within were heard 
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed 
Mysterious union with its native sea. 
Even such a shell the universe itself 
Is to the ear of Faith ; and there are times, 
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart 
Authentic tidings of invisible things, — 
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power ; 
And central peace, subsisting at the heart 
Of endless agitation. Here you stand, 
Adore, and worship, when you know it not ; 
Pious beyond the intention of your thought ; 
Devout above the meaning of your will. 
Yes, you have felt, and may not cease to feel. 



Wordsworth. 



Brougham has criticised Burke upon the passage here abridged, 
and upon his use of the figure of the gathering storm, and has 
compared it with the same figure in Demosthenes. 

Professor Jebb says, however, that this is a failure to appreciate 
the different points of view. " Burke is a painter ; Demosthenes 
is a sculptor. " That is to say, the imagination of the two men 
acted in a different way; and it is very imperfect criticism that 
will compare the difference in the creative actions of their minds 
to the disparagement of either orator. The imagination in every 
human being is more or less peculiar and different. The imagina- 
tion never copies or imitates. Whenever it is true it is original. 
It was impossible for Burke, with his modern training, to have 
portrayed his images like one educated beneath the Parthenon. 

DESTRUCTION OF THE CARNATIC. 

When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who 
either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature 
could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse 
itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible 
and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He 



FREEDOM OP THE IMAGINATION. 141 

resolved,, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to 
leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to 
put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against 
whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together 
was no protection. 

... He drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could 
add to his new rudiments in the art of destruction ; and compounding 
all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he 
hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the au- 
thors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing 
meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured 
down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. 

Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no 
heart conceived, and of which no tongue can adequately tell. All the 
horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that new havoc. 
A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, 
destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their 
flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to 
sex, to age, to the respect of rank or sacredness of function, — fathers 
torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of 
cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers and the trampling of 
pursuing horses, — were swept into captivity in an unknown and hostile 
land. Those who were able to evade this tempest fled to the walled 
cities ; but escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws 
of famine. ... So completely did these masters of their art — Hyder Ali 
and his more ferocious son — absolve themselves of their impious vow, 
that, when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hun- 
dreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their inarch 
they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four- 
footed beast of any description whatever. One dead, uniform silence 
reigned over the whole region. Burke. 

The people gave their voice, and the danger that hung upon our 
borders went by like a cloud. Demosthenes. 

"With that I saw two swans of goodly hue 

Come softly swimming down along the lee : 

Two fairer birds I yet did never see ; 

The snow which doth the top of Pindus strow 

Did never whiter show ; 

Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be 

For love of Leda, whiter did appear. 



142 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he, 
Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near ; 
So purely white they were 

That even the gentle stream, the which them bare, 
Seem'd foul to them, and bade his billows spare 
To wet their silken feathers, lest they might 
Soil their fair plumes with water not so fair, 
And mar their beauties bright 
That shone as Heaven's light 
Against their bridal day, which was not long. 
Sweet Thames ! run softly, till I end my song. 
From " Protlialamion." Spenser, 

ITYLUS. 

Swallow, my sister, sister swallow, 

How can thine heart be full of the spring ? 
A thousand summers are over and dead. 
What hast thou found in the spring to follow ? 
What hast thou found in thy heart to sing ? 
What wilt thou do when the summer is shed ? 

swallow, sister, fair swift swallow, 

Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south, — 
The soft south, whither thine heart is set ? 
Shall not the grief of the old time follow ? 

Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth ? 
Hast thou forgotten ere I forget ? 

Sister, my sister, fleet sweet swallow, 

Thy way is long to the sun and the south ; 

But I, fulfilled of my heart's desire, 

Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow, 

From tawny body and sweet small mouth 

Feed the heart of the night with fire. 

I, the nightingale, all spring through, 
swallow, sister, changing swallow, 

All spring through, till the spring be done, 
Clothed with the light of the night on the dew, — 
Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow, 
Take flight and follow and find the sun. 

sweet stray sister, shifting swallow, 
The heart's division divideth us. 
Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree, 
But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow, 
To the place of the slaying of Itylus, 
The feast of Daulis, the Thracian Sea. 



FREEDOM OF THE IMAGINATION. 143 

swallow, sister, rapid swallow, 
I pray thee sing not a little space. 
Are not the roofs and the lintels wet ? 
The woven web that was plain to follow, 
The small slain body, the flower-like face, 
Can I remember if thou forget ? 

sister, sister, thy first-begotten ! 

The hands that cling and the feet that follow, 
The voice of the child's blood crying yet, 
" Who hath remembered me ? who hath forgotten ?" 

Thou hast forgotten, summer swallow, 

But the world shall end when I forget. 

Swinburne. 



To me it is a most touching face ; perhaps of all the faces that I 
know, the most so. Blank there, painted on vacancy, with the simple 
laurel wound round it ; the deathless sorrow and pain, the known vic- 
tory which is also deathless ; significant of the whole history of Dante ! 
I think it is the mournfullest face that ever was painted from reality ; an 
altogether tragic, heart-affecting face. There is in it, as foundation of 
it, the softness, tenderness, gentle affection as of a child ; but all this 
is as if congealed into sharp contradiction, into abnegation, isolation, 
proud, hopeless pain. A soft ethereal soul looking out so stern, impla- 
cable, grim-trenchant, as from imprisonment of thick-ribbed ice ! 
Withal it is a silent pain, too, — a silent, scornful one : the lip is 
curled in a kind of god-like disdain of the thing that is eating out his 
heart, — as if it were, withal, a mean, insignificant thing; as if he whom 
it had power to torture and strangle were greater than it. The face of 
one wholly in protest, and life-long, unsurrendering battle, against the 
world, affection all converted into indignation, — an implacable indig- 
nation; slow, equable, implacable, silent, like that of a god ! The eye, 
too, it looks out as in a kind of surprise, a kind of inquiry, Why was 
the world of such a sort 1 This is Dante : so he looks, this " voice of 
ten silent centuries/' and sings us his " mystic, unfathomable song." 
The Face of Dante. Carlyle. 

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones 

The labour of an age in piled stones, 

Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid 

Under a star-y pointing pyramid ? 

Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame, 

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name ? 

Thou in our wonder and astonishment r 

Hast built thyself a livelong monument. 



144 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring Art 
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart 
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book 
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, — 
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving, 
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving ; 
And so sepulchered, in such pomp dost He, 
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. 



Milton. 



XVII. MISCONCEPTIONS AND ABUSES. 

Of all the faculties the imagination is most frequently miscon- 
ceived. To many it is simply the faculty of hallucination. Even 
some painters of the realistic type have declared imagination a 
hindrance to artistic work. These entirely overlook the fact that 
the greatest realist must give imaginative feeling to a simple touch 
of his brush, or he is not an artist. 

Imagination does not deceive. Deceit is an abuse of the faculty. 
It does not cause delusion; it may create artistic illusion, but in 
this it looks through the external to the internal, through the 
body to the spirit. It uses facts to find truth. " It is, indeed, 
pre-eminently a truthful and truth-seeing power, perceiving subtle 
aspects of truth, hidden relations, far-reaching analogies, which 
find no entrance to us by any other inlet. " 

Again, imagination is not extravagant; fancy may exaggerate, 
but the imagination, never. Imagination is not a drunken, a flip- 
pant, or a trivial faculty. It does not dissipate noble emotion, but 
lies at the heart of our deepest experience. 

Again, imagination is not a mere decorative faculty; it sees and 
creates beauty, but it does not adorn superficially. Its beauty is 
unfolded from the heart. It is not a faculty for fantastic or ficti- 
tious visions. Its highest characteristic is depth of insight. It 
must not be judged by its perversions and diseases, or by its lower 
functions, but by its highest and noblest characteristics. Its climax 
is not the literal fact, but truth. It never acts apart from truth. 
It is the faculty of all faculties that deals with the heart of things 
and the heart of man. 



MISCONCEPTIONS AND ABUSES. 145 

Again, imagination is not mere composition. Some one has 
said that man has the power to arrange and adjust his ideas, subor- 
dinate one and accentuate another; but this power he does not have 
over Nature. This arranging is, however, rather composition than 
imagination. When the arrangement is such as to manifest the 
ideal, when it is a spontaneous creation, it may be imaginative; but 
the imagination never acts mechanically. It doesnot construct and 
build; it gives life that unfolds itself in growth. 

" Fancy, " says Ruskin, " as she stays at the externals, can never 
feel. She is one of the hardest-hearted of the intellectual facul- 
ties, or rather one of the most purely and simply intellectual. She 
cannot be made serious, — no edge-tools but she will play with ; 
whereas the imagination is in all things the reverse. She cannot 
be but serious; she sees too far, too darkly, too solemnly, too 
earnestly, ever to smile. There is something in the heart of 
everything, if we can reach it, that we shall not be inclined to 
laugh at." 

The imagination is of all faculties most capable of abuse. It 
must be trained to use the material of real knowledge. There 
must be no sickly desire to run away from simple facts to that 
which is extravagant, unnatural, and untrue. 

The imagination has much to do with moral life and character, 
and is kept from abuse by a perception of the true spirit of all 
things, by the moral and intellectual balance of the whole man; 
again, the imagination is kept normal by careful observation and 
thorough investigation. One of the worst abuses is calling upon it 
for facts as a substitute for hard work and earnest study to find the 
truth. " The gentleman calls upon his imagination for his facts 
and his memory for his tropes " was a witty reference to the per- 
version of each faculty. Lastly, man's creative powers are kept 
strong and true by constant study of the best poetry and art. 

Some think that imagination must create some kind of ideal con- 
ception without materials for such a poem as Psalm xlvi. But 
true imagination finds the specific situation and the historical occa- 
sion as far as possible, and founds its creations upon truth. The 
situation is supposed by many of the best scholars to be after the 
destruction of the Assyrian hosts of Sennacherib. 

10 



146 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The true reader will first study this great event, and his imagina- 
tion out of the dry facts will create a living scene, and cause him 
to stand on the morning after that great relief and feel with those 
who poured forth their thanksgiving iu such a noble ode. 

THE GREAT DELIVERANCE. 

God is our refuge and strength, 

A very present help in trouble. 

Therefore will we not fear though the earth be shaken ; 

Though the mountains tremble on their bases in the heart of the seas. 

Let the waters roar and foam ! 

Let the mountains shake before their waves ! 

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, 
The holy place of the dwellings of the Most High ! 
God is in her midst ; she shall not be moved. 
God shall help her, with the morning dawn. 
The nations raged ; their kingdoms were moved against us ; 
He uttered His voice, and the earth melted with fear ! 
The Lord of Hosts is with us ; 
The God of Jacob is our refuge. 

Come, behold the deeds of Jehovah, 
"What wondrous things He has done in the earth ; 
He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth ! 
He breaks the bow; He snaps the spear asunder; 
He burns the war chariot in the fire ! 

" Be still, and know that I am God ; 

I will be exalted among the nations ! 

I will be exalted in the earth." 

The Lord of Hosts is with us ; 

The God of Jacob is our refuge. Psalm xlvL 

The imagination is kept from abuse by contact with the grandest 
and noblest art. The artist must not only live in contact with 
masterpieces in his own special form of art, but he also needs to 
study the masterpieces in other forms of art. The true painter 
will study also good music, as the architect will study to appreciate 
sculpture, or the public reader or actor endeavor to appreciate 
painting. 

The advice of Longfellow to Mary Anderson was : " Every day 
look upon some beautiful picture, read some beautiful poem, hear 
some beautiful piece of music." This not only develops the 



MISCONCEPTIONS AND ABUSES. 147 

imagination, but keeps it active and normal, and prevents those 
diseases of the imagination some of which are the most fearful 
that afflict the human mind. 

FROM THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. 

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes 
familiar objects be as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that it 
represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand 
thenceforward, in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, 
as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself 
over all thought and actions with which it coexists. The great secret of 
morals is love; or a going out of our nature, and an identification of our- 
selves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not 
our. own. A man to be greatly good must imagine intensely and com- 
prehensively ; he must put himself in the place of another and of many 
others ; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. 
The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry 
administers to the effect by acting upon ihe cause. Poetry enlarges the 
circumference of the imagination by replenishing it with thoughts of 
ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and assimilating 
to their own nature all other thoughts, and which form new intervals 
and interstices whose void forever craves fresh food. Poetry strengthens 
the faculty which is the organ of the moral nature of man, in the same 
manner as exercise strengthens a limb. 

Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and cir- 
cumference of knowledge ; it is that which comprehends all science, and 
that to which all science must be referred. It is at the same time the 
root and blossom of all other systems of thought ; it is that from which 
all spring, and that which adorns all; and that which, if blighted, denies 
the fruit and the seed, and withholds from the barren world the nourish- 
ment and the succession of the scions of the tree of life. It is the perfect 
and consummate surface and bloom of all things ; it is as the odour and 
the colour of the rose to the texture of the elements which compose it, as 
the form and splendour of unfadecl beauty to the secrets of anatomy and 
corruption. What were virtue, love, patriotism, friendship ; what were 
the scenery of this beautiful universe which we inhabit ; what were our 
consolations on this side of the grave, and what were our aspirations 
beyond it, — if poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire from those 
eternal regions where the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not 
ever soar? 

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest 
and best minds. We are aware of evanescent visitations of thought and 



148 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

feeling sometimes associated with place or person, sometimes regarding 
our own mind alone, and always arising unforeseen and departing 
unbidden, but elevating and delightful beyond all expression : so that 
even in the desire and the regret they leave, there cannot be but pleas- 
ure, participating as it does in the nature of its object. It is as it were 
the interpenetration of a diviner nature through our own ; but its foot- 
steps are like those of a wind over the sea, which the coming calm 
erases, and whose traces remain only as on the wrinkled sands which 
pave it. These and corresponding conditions of being are experienced 
principally by those of the most delicate sensibility and the most en- 
larged imagination ; and the state of mind produced by them is at war 
with every base desire. The enthusiasm of virtue, love, patriotism, 
and friendship is essentially linked with such emotions ; and whilst they 
last, self appears as what it is, — an atom to a universe. Poets are not 
only subject to these experiences as spirits of the most refined organisa- 
tion, but they can colour all that they combine with the evanescent hue 
of this ethereal world ; a word, a trait in the representation of a scene 
or a passion will touch the enchanted chord, and reanimate, in those who 
have ever experienced these emotions, the sleeping, the cold, the buried 
image of the past. Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and 
most beautiful in the world ; it arrests the vanishing apparitions which 
haunt the interlunations of life, and veiling them, or in language or in 
form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred 
joy to those with whom their sisters abide, — abide, because there is no 
portal of expression from the caverns of the spirit which they inhabit 
into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the visitations 
of the divinity in man. Shelley. 

IN THE STORM. 

A wild rough night : and through the gloomy gray 
One sees the blackness of the headland grow ; 
One sees the whiteness of the upflung spray, 
The whiteness of the breakers down below. 

A wild wild night : and on the shingly rim 
The furious sea-surge roars and frets and rives ; 
And far away those black specks, growing dim, 
Are tossing with their freights of human lives. 

And all the while upon the silent height 
The strong white star, beneath the starless sky, 
Shines through the dimness of the troubled night, 
Shines motionless while the vexed winds hoot by. 



KNOWLEDGE AND EXPRESSION. , 149 

steadfast light ! across dark miles of sea 
How many straining eyes whence sleep is chased 
. Are watching through the midnight-storm for thee, 
Large glimmering through the haze to the gray waste ! 
And in the night, fond mothers, scared awake, 
And lonely wives, pushing the blind aside, 
See thee, and bless thee for their sailor's sake, 
And thank God thou art there, the dear ship's guide. 
strong calm star ! so watching night by night 
And hour by hour, when storm-winds are astir, 
They find thee changeless with thy patient light, 
A beacon to the sea-tossed wanderer. 

strong and patient ! Once upon my life 
Shone such a star ; and when the trouble wave 
Reached me, and I grew faint with tempest strife, 
Through all I saw that hope-star, and was brave. 
my lost star ! my star that was to me 
Instead of sunlight that the happy know ! 
weary way upon life's trackless sea ! 
And through the gloom there shines no beacon glow. 

Augusta Webster. 

XVIII. KNOWLEDGE AND EXPRESSION. 

Knowledge has many degrees of definiteness. Many persons are 
content with vague ideas of the most common objects around them, 
as well as of all departments of science, literature, and art. Ask 
one of these whether he has a love for Shakespeare or not: « Why 
of course! " yet he never gave it a thought. He loves poetry as a 
matter "of course," while he really has only a vague comprehen- 
sion of what literature is, and no especial love for any author. 

Literature is often studied historically, and no love is awakened 
for any one work. The spirit is not felt, the imagination is not 
awakened. Authors are but names, poems little more than words 
Our understanding of a poem, oration, essay, or story should have 
the characteristics of perfect knowledge. For an appreciation of 
poetry or literature it is necessary to have a thorough understand- 
ing of the ideas beneath the words; for such an understanding is 
the basis of imaginative creation and sympathetic assimilation. ° 



150 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Such understanding is especially necessary to vocal expression. 
No man can express what he does not understand. He must not 
only understand the meaning of a phrase, — he must have in his 
mind a definite, ideal presence of which expression is simply the 
manifestation. The mere repetition of words is not expression. 
There must be distinct impression, and adequate and definite feel- 
ing, before there can be any truth or completeness of expression. 

For more than a hundred years the basis of all studies on the 
relative perfection of knowledge has been an -essay by Leibnitz. 
This essay is more or less obscure and difficult to understand. 
Professor Jevons has given an abridgment or illustration of it 
in his "Logic." So important is the subject to every student of 
vocal expression, that a few passages are selected for special study 
in relation to expression. 

Knowledge is either obscure or clear; either confused or distinct; 
either adequate or inadequate ; and lastly either symbolical or intuitive. 
Perfect knowledge must be clear, distinct, adequate, and intuitive ; if it 
fails in any one of these respects it is more or less imperfect. We may, 
therefore, classify knowledge as in the following scheme : — 

Knowledge. 





1 
Clear. 

1 


1 
Obs 


1 

Distinct. 




Confused. 


Adequate. 




i 
Inadequate. 



I I 

Intuitive. Symbolical. 

Perfect. 

A notion, that is to say our knowledge of a thing, is obscure when it 
does not enable us to recognize the thing again and discriminate it from 
all other things. We have a clear notion of a rose and of most common 
flowers, because we can recognize, them with certaint}' - , and do not con- 
fuse them with each other. A shepherd acquires by practice a clear 
notion of each sheep of his flock, so as to enable him to single out any 
one separately. 

Clear knowledge, again, is confused when we cannot distinguish the 
parts and qualities of the thing known, and can only recognize it as a 



KNOWLEDGE AND EXPRESSION. 151 

whole. Though any one instantly knows a friend, and could discrimi- 
nate him from all other persons, }^et he would generally find it impossible 
to say how he knows him, or by what marks. He could not describe 
his figure or features but in the very roughest manner. A person un- 
practised in drawing, who attempts to delineate even such a familiar 
object as a horse or cow, soon finds that he has but a confused notion of 
its form, while an artist has a distinct idea of the form of every limb. 

To have adequate knowledge of things, we must not only distinguish 
the parts which make up our notion of a thing, but the parts which make 
up those parts. To be completely adequate, our knowledge ought to 
admit of analysis after analysis ad infinitum ; so that adequate knowledge 
would be impossible. But we may consider any knowledge adequate 
which carries the analysis sufficiently far for the purpose in view. A 
mechanist, for instance, has adequate knowledge of a machine if he not 
only know its several wheels and parts, but the purposes, materials, 
forms, and actions of those parts, — provided again that he knows all the 
mechanical properties of the materials, and the geometrical properties of 
the forms which may influence the working of the machine ; but he is 
not expected to go on still further and explain why iron or wood of a 
particular quality is strong or brittle, why oil acts as a lubricator, or on 
what axioms the principles of mechanical forces are founded. 

Lastly, we must notice the very important distinction of symbolical and 
intuitive knowledge. From the original meaning of the word, intuitive 
would denote that which we gain by seeing (Latin, intueor, to look 
at) ; and any knowledge which we have directly through the senses, or 
by immediate communication to the mind, is called intuitive. Thus we 
ma} r learn intuitively what a square or a hexagon is, but hardly what a 
chiliagon, or figure of 1000 sides, is. We could not tell the difference 
by sight of a figure of 1000 sides and a figure of 1001 sides. Nor can 
we imagine any such figure completely before the mind. It is known to 
us only by name, or symbolically. All large numbers, — such as those 
which state the velocity of light (186,000 miles per second), the dis- 
tance of the sun (91,000,000 miles), and the like, — are known to us 
only by symbols, and they are beyond our powers of imagination. 

Whenever in common life we use words without having in mind at 
the moment their full and precise meaning, we possess symbolical knowl- 
edge only. 

There is no worse habit for a student or reader to acquire than that of 
accepting words instead of a knowledge of things. It is perhaps worse 
than useless to read a work on natural history about Infusoria, Forami- 
nifera, Rotifera, and the like, if these names do not convey clear images 



152 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

to the mind. Nor can a student who has not witnessed experiments, 
and examined the substances with his own eyes, derive any consider- 
able advantage from works on chemistry and natural philosophy, where 
he will meet with hundreds of new terms which would be to him mere 
empty and confusing signs. On this account we should lose no oppor- 
tunity of acquainting ourselves, by means of our senses, with the forms, 
properties, and changes of things, in order that the language we employ 
may, as far as possible, be employed intuitively, and we may be saved 
from the absurdities and fallacies into which we might otherwise fall. 

The application of this to vocal expression is not difficult. A 
student in preparing for recitation learns his words, and thinks he 
is ready. There has been little or no meditation over the ideas; 
his knowledge, if he has any, is in a symbolic, not in an intuitive, 
state. He has a mere acquisition of terms ; the ideas beneath are 
vague and inadequate, and of course expression must consequently 
be imperfect. 

Effect follows adequate cause. The source of noble expression 
is thorough knowledge. 

The application of these principles to imagination and feeling is 
of special importance in expression, because the depth and accu- 
racy of knowledge results in adequate and definite feeling. True 
feeling is a response to knowledge, and true imaginative activity is 
founded upon accuracy of observation and knowledge. Men may, 
of course, have very definite knowledge, and discipline themselves 
to repress all imagination and emotion ; but where there is a sym- 
pathetic study of a subject in relation to expression, not only 
is adequate knowledge secured, but vague emotions are intercepted 
and feeling grows definite. The imagination becomes dominated 
by the ideas, and changes with every change and point of view. - 

The distinction between symbolic and intuitive knowledge, and 
the superiority of the latter, are most important to expression. 
All imaginative action is intuitive. All true, intuitive conception 
in speaking is an incentive to right emotion. 

No one should be called upon to read that which has not passed 
into the realm of intuitive knowledge. This principle applies in 
every case. Man can express only what he adequately under- 
stands. A student must be led gradually to secure perfect and 



KNOWLEDGE AND EXPRESSION. 153 

intuitive knowledge of literature, and deeper and truer emotions 
and fuller expression. 

On the other hand, the student must be given literature which 
demands intellectual effort for its comprehension. He must be 
encouraged to meditate upon great literature. 

The necessity of adequate knowledge for truthful expression 
may be illustrated by Browning's monologue, " A Woman's Last 
Word. " If one begins to read this without a clear conception of 
the whole, receiving ideas simply as they happen to come to the 
mind, expression will be vague. Here and there may be a clear 
idea, but there is no adequate expression of the whole. The 
poem requires a complete comprehension of the whole situation, 
before a single phrase can be realized imaginatively. 

A woman is represented as talking to her husband, who has in- 
sisted upon her disclosing to him some event in her past life. She 
feels that she cannot make clear her love for another, and that to 
talk about it will create only misunderstanding. The poem is her 
speech, — a yielding, but with a request for postponement. With 
this knowledge gained, the conception of the poem grows clearer; 
then, and not till then, does the imaginative action of the poem 
begin. The reader can now secure an intuitive and imaginative 
point of view, and a conception of the poem adequate to 
expression. 

A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. 

Let 's contend no more, Love, strive nor weep : 

All be as before, Love, — only sleep ! 

What so wild as words are ? I and thou 

In debate, as birds are, — hawk on bough ! 

See the creature stalking while we speak ! 

Hush and hide the talking, cheek on cheek ! 

What so false as truth is, false to thee ? 

Where the serpent's tooth is, shun the tree — 

Where the apple reddens, never pry — g 

Lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I. 

Be a god, and hold me with a charm ! 

Be a man, and fold me with thine arm ! 

Teach me, only teach, Love ! As I ought 

I will speak thy speech, Love, think thy thought — 



154 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Meet, if thou require it, both demands, 

Laying flesh and spirit in thy hands. 

That shall be to-morrow, not to-night : 

I must bury sorrow out of sight, — 

Must a little weep, Love, (Foolish me !), 

And so fall asleep, Love, loved by thee. 

Browning. 

Problem XIX. Read passages with different degrees of vividness and 
clearness of ideas, and note the fact that the imagination is more active and 
feeling more responsive in proportion to the mastery of the thought and defi- 
niteness of the understanding. 

IDENTITY. 

Somewhere — in desolate wind-swept space — 
In Twilight land — in No-man's land — 
Two hungry Shapes met face to face, 
And bade each other stand. 

' ' And who are you ? " cried one, agape, 

Shuddering in the gloaming light. 

"I know not," said the second Shape, 

" I only died last night ! " 

T. B. Ahlrich. 



XIX. DEVELOPMENT OF IMAGINATION. 

While the imagination is a creative faculty, whose subtle pro- 
cesses defy analysis, still it must have material with which to act. 
There must exist in the mind an ample store of apperceptions, of 
ideal forms and beautiful images, as a basis for activity. 

Such material the imagination cannot create for itself. It must 
come from experience, from a sympathetic and careful observation 
of Nature, art, and science. 

Nature is one source whence it may be drawn. All poets, all 
artists, have a deep love for Nature. Admiration and wonder are 
born in each child; when wonder is lost, all teachableness, all 
receptivity, all hope and faith are lost. The first objects upon 
which the imagination is exercised is wondering admiration for 
trees and flowers, birds and brooks, skies and clouds. The im- 
agination makes them live and move. Nature plays a part in 



DEVELOPMENT OF IMAGINATION. 155 

the education of man; she calls forth and complements his spirit. 
A love of Nature is spontaneous. The child longs to be out of 
doors. An education that warps this affection for Nature is 
radically wrong. 

Next in importance to the development of a genuine love for 
Nature comes the study of painting, sculpture, and music. Art is 
the interpretation of Nature ; and it is only by a co-ordinate study 
of art and Nature that we can awaken a true love of Nature on the 
one hand, or of art on the other. Art has a specific language for 
each of its forms or manifestations, and every human being must 
be trained to read all these languages. Each art-work awakens 
a peculiar action of the imagination in its creator, and also in the 
one who simply appreciates and learns to love it. Every one 
should endeavor to develop the power to think pictorially, so as to 
appreciate painting; or to think plastically, so as to appreciate 
sculpture. In short, every imagination should be trained to re- 
spond to a true painting, to a noble statue, to an artistic building, 
and to every great art-work. 

The one form of art which every person can carry with him is 
literature ; and primary dependence for the awakening of the imag- 
ination in most persons must be placed upon poetry and the works 
of great authors. 

Literature complemented by the other arts furnishes the highest 
study and interpretation of Nature and humanity. With poetry, 
the imagination of the race is forever intertwined. It is at once 
the highest creation of the imagination and the most necessary 
food for its development. 

The one author who is especially helpful in the interpretation 
of Nature, not only in youth but in old age, is Wordsworth. He 
should be carefully studied by all students of vocal expression. 
He brings imagination to little things ; uses simple words ; has no 
sentimental sadness, no exaggerated and abnormal passion; and 
gives little temptation to declamation. 

Observe the simplicity of his insight, and the truthfulness and 
beauty of his expression in this simple contemplation of two 
mountain summits, yet how forcibly he holds our attention, 
quickens our imagination, and stirs our feelings. 



/ 



156 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

"Those lusty twins," exclaimed our host, "if here 
It were your lot to dwell, would soon become 
Your prized companions. Many are the notes 
Which, in his tuneful course, the wind draws forth 
From rocks, woods, caverns, heaths, and dashing shores ; 
And well those lofty brethren bear their part 
In the wild concert — chiefly when the storm 
Bides high ; then all the upper air they fill 
"With roaring sound, that ceases not to flow, 
Like smoke, along the level of the blast, 
In mighty current ; theirs, too, is the song 
Of stream and headlong flood that seldom fails ; 
And, in the grim and breathless hour of noon, 
Methinks that I have heard them echo back 
The thunder's greeting. Nor have Nature's laws 
Left them ungifted with a power to yield 
Music of finer tone ; a harmony, 
So do I call it, though it be the hand 
Of silence, though there be no voice : the clouds, 
The mist, the shadows, light of golden suns, 
Motions of moonlight, — all come thither, touch, 
And have an answer — thither come, and shape 
A language not unwelcome to sick hearts 
And idle spirits : there the sun himself, 
At the calm close of summer's longest day 
Rests his substantial orb ; between those heights 
And on the top of either pinnacle, 
More keenly than elsewhere in night's blue vault, 
Sparkle the stars, as of their station proud." 

Wordsworth. 

The one supreme author for the study of human nature is 
Shakespeare. His works must be the chief text-book for all 
students of expression. 

To repeat again the principle upon which these lessons are 
founded, art must be studied as art and by means of art. Hence, 
to develop the imagination, to secure a true appreciation of any 
literary work, there must be earnest study and practice to render 
the highest products of the artistic nature by the voice. The 
most natural language, that of the voice, must be exercised to 
give expression to the noblest forms of poetry and literature. 

Professor Shairp has some valuable suggestions to poets which 



DEVELOPMENT OF IMAGINATION. 157 

apply with equal force to every kind of artist, and especially to 
the reader, the actor, or the speaker. " The imagination," he says, 
" must have a large store of material on which to work ; this it 
cannot create for itself. From other regions it must be gathered, — 
from a wealth of mind in the poet himself; from large experience 
of life and intimate knowledge of Nature ; from the exercise of his 
heart, his judgment, his reflection, indeed of his whole being, on 
all he has seen and felt. In fact, a great poet must be a man 
made wise by large experience, much feeling, and deep reflection : 
above all, he must have a hold of the great central truth of things. 
When these many conditions are present, then and then only can 
his imagination work widely, benignly, and for all time; then 
only can the poet become a 

" 'Serene creator of immortal things.'" 



LITERATURE OP KNOWLEDGE AND OF POWER. 

In that great social organ, which collectively we call literature, there 
may be distinguished two separate offices that may blend and often do so, 
but capable severally of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for 
reciprocal repulsion. There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, 
secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is to teach ; 
the function of the second is to move : the first is a rudder, the second an 
oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding ; 
the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understand- 
ing or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy. 
Remotely, it may travel towards an object seated in what Lord Bacon 
calls dry light ; but proximately it does and must operate, else it ceases 
to be a literature of power, on and through that humid light which 
clothes itself in the mists and glittering iris of human passions, desires, 
and genial emotions. Men have so little reflected on the higher functions 
of literature, as to find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean 
or subordinate purpose of books to give information. But this is a 
paradox only in the sense which makes it honourable to be paradoxical. 
Whenever we talk in ordinary language of seeking information or gain- 
ing knowledge, we understand the words as connected with something of 
absolute novelty. But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy 
a very high plane in human interests, that it is never absolutely novel to 
the meanest of minds : it exists externally by way of germ or latent 
principle in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be developed but 



158 



IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 



never to be planted. To be capable of transplantation is the immediate 
criterion of a truth that ranges on a lower scale. Besides which, there 
is a rarer thing than truth ; namely, power or deep sympathy with 
truth. What is the effect, for instance, upon society, of children ? By 
the pity, by the tenderness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration 
which connect themselves with the helplessness, with the innocence, 
and with the simplicity of children, not only are the primal affections 
strengthened and continually renewed, but the qualities which are 
dearest in the sight of Heaven : the frailty, for instance, which ap- 
peals to forbearance, the innocence which symbolizes the heavenly, and 
the simplicity which is most alien from the worldly are kept up in per- 
petual remembrance, and their ideals are continually refreshed. 

A purpose of the same nature is answered by the higher literature; 
namely, the literature of power. What do you learn from Paradise 
Lost 1 Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery-book 1 
Something new, something that you did not know before, in every 
paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery-book on a 
higher level of estimation than the divine poem ? What you owe to 
Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still 
but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level ; what you 
owe, is power, that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity 
of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate 
influx is a step upwards, — a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder 
from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of 
knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but 
could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth ; whereas, 
the very first step in power is a flight, — is an ascending into another 
element, where earth is forgotten. 

Were it not that human sensibilities are ventilated and continually 
called out into exercise by the great phenomena of infancy, or of real life 
as it moves through chance and change, or of literature as it re-combines 
these elements in the mimicries of poetry, romance, etc., it is certain 
that, like any animal power or muscular energy falling into disuse, all 
such sensibilities would gradually droop and dwindle. It is in relation 
to these great moral capacities of man that the literature of power, as 
contra-distinguished from that of knowledge, lives and has its field of 
action. . . . The commonest novel, by moving in alliance with human 
fears and hopes, with human instincts of wrong and right, sustains and 
quickens those affections. Calling them into action, it rescues them 
from torpor. And hence the pre-eminency over all authors that merely 
teach, of the meanest that moves ; or that teaches, if at all, indirectly by 



DEVELOPMENT OF IMAGINATION. 159 

moving. The very highest work that has ever existed in the literature 
of knowledge is but a provisional work, — a book upon trial and suf- 
ferance. Let its teaching be even partially revised ; let it be but ex- 
panded, — nay even let its teaching be but placed in a better order, — and 
instantly it is superseded. Whereas the feeblest works in the literature 
of power, surviving at all, survive as finished and unalterable amongst 
men. For instance, the 'Principia' of Sir Isaac Newton was a book 
militant on earth from the first. In all stages of its progress it would 
have to fight for its existence, — first, as regards absolute truth ; secondly, 
when that combat is over, as regards its form or mode of presenting the 
truth. And as soon as a La Place, or anybody else, builds higher upon 
the foundations laid by this book, effectually he throws it out of the 
sunshine into decay and darkness ; by weapons won from this book he 
superannuates and destroys this book, so that soon the name of Newton 
remains as a mere nominis umbra, but his book, as a living power, has 
transmigrated into other forms. Now, on the contrary, the Iliad, the 
Prometheus of iEschylus,. the Othello or King Lear, the Hamlet or 
Macbeth, and the Paradise Lost are not militant, but triumphant 
forever as long as the languages exist in which they speak or can be 
taught to speak. They never can transmigrate into new incarnations. 
To reproduce these in new forms or variations, even if in some things 
they should be improved, would be to plagiarize. A good steam-engine 
is properly superseded by a better ; but one lovely pastoral valley is not 
superseded by another, nor a statue of Praxiteles by a statue of Michael 
Angelo. These things are not separated by imparity, but by disparity; 
they are not thought of as unequal under the same standard, but as 
different in kind, and as equal under a different standard. Human works 
of immortal beauty and works of Nature in one respect stand on the 
same footing : they never absolutely repeat each other, never approach 
so near as not to differ ; and they differ not as better and worse, or simply 
by more and less, — they differ by undecipherable and incommunicable 
differences, that cannot be caught by mimicries, nor be reflected in the 
mirror of copies, nor become ponderable in the scales of vulgar com- 
parison. ... At this hour, five hundred years since their creation, the 
tales of Chaucer, never equalled on this earth for their tenderness and 
for life of picturesqueness, are read familiarly by many in the charming 
language of their natal day, and by others in the modernizations of 
Dryden, of Pope, and Wordsworth. At this hour, one thousand eight 
hundred years since their creation, the Pagan tales of Ovid, never 
equalled on this earth for the gayety of their movement and the capri- 
cious graces of their narrative, are read by all Christendom. This 



10U IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

man's people and their monuments are dust ; but he is alive : he has 
survived them, as he told us that he had it in his commission to do, by a 
thousand years, — " and shall a thousand more." 

All the literature of knowledge builds only ground-nests, that are 
swept away by floods or confounded by the plough ; but the literature 
of power builds nests in aerial altitudes of temples sacred from violation, 
or of forests inaccessible to fraud. This is a great prerogative of the 
power literature ; and it is a greater which lies in the mode of its 
influence. The knowledge literature, like the fashion of this world, 
passeth away. An Encyclopaedia is its abstract ; and in this respect it 
may be taken for its speaking symbol, that, before one generation has 
passed, an Encyclopaedia is superannuated ; for it speaks through the 
dead memory and unimpassioned understanding, which have not the 
rest of higher faculties, but are continually enlarging and varying their 
phylacteries. But all literature, properly so called — literature " kclt 
*%°xh v " f° r the very same reason that it is so much more durable than 
the literature of knowledge — is (and by the very same proportion it is) 
more intense and electrically searching in its impressions. The direc- 
tions in which the tragedy of this planet has trained our human feelings 
to play, and the combinations into which the poetry of this planet has 
thrown our human passions of love and hatred, or admiration and con- 
tempt, exercise a power bad or good over human life that cannot be 
contemplated, when stretching through many generations, without a 
sentiment allied to awe. And of this let every one be assured, — that 
he owes to the impassioned books which he has read many a thousand 
more of emotions than he can consciously trace back to them. Dim by 
their origination, these emotions yet arise in him, and mould him through 

life like the forgotten incidents of childhood. 

De Quincey. 



But who is He, with modest looks, 
And clad in homely russet brown ? 
He murmurs near the running brooks' 
A music sweeter than their own. 

He is retired as noontide dew, 
Or fountain in a noon-day grove ; 
And you must love him, ere to you 
He will seem worthy of your love. 

The outward shows of sky and earth, 
Of hill and valley, he has viewed ; 
And impulses of deeper birth 
Have come to him in solitude. 



TOCAL MANIFESTATIONS OF IMAGINATION: TOUCH. 161 

In common things that round us lie 
Some random truths he can impart, — 
The harvest of a quiet eye 
That broods and sleeps on his own heart. 

But he is weak ; both Man and Boy, 
Hath been an idler in the land ; 
Contented if he might enjoy 
* The things which others understand. 

— Come thither in thy hour of strength ; 
Come, weak as is a breaking wave ! 
Here stretch thy body at full length ; 
Or build thy house upon his grave. 
A Poet's Epitaph. Wordsworth. 



XX. VOCAL MANIFESTATIONS OF IMAGINATION: TOUCH 

The modulations of the voice are few and simple, — pause, inflec- 
tion, change of pitch, touch, texture, and tone-color. 

These may seem at first inadequate; but when we study the 
other arts, we find that the means of expression are always few 
and simple. There are but three colors; and these, with light and 
shade, and possibly the addition of line, are the painter's means of 
representing the infinite complexity of light and color, form and 
texture in Nature. Vocal expression, therefore, in having but a 
few simple elements, or means of expression, shares the character 
of all other arts. 

The question arises, What are the peculiar effects of the imagi- 
nation upon these vocal modulations 1 

All of these elements are used by the different powers of the 
man. But there are certain of these elements, such as inflection,, 
which have a more immediate relationship to thinking and the 
intellect. Certain others, such as color and texture, have a more 
intimate relation with feeling. All these elements have a specific 
meaning and function ; but they are used simultaneously, and for 
the revelation of the whole man. 

What is the difference between the use of these elements in 
giving expression to ordinary thinking and in the expression of 
higher imaginative action and feeling? 

11 



162 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Ordinary thinking accentuates them, enlarges them. Imagina- 
tion tends to use them more delicately. Ordinary thinking ex- 
presses or emphasizes an idea by making a point salient, by making 
an inflection or a change of pitch longer, by giving a touch more 
force; but the imagination expresses itself more by a sympathetic 
modulation of the whole. As imagination relates ideas to each 
other, so it sympathetically relates and brings into unity very 
diverse vocal modulations. Ordinary thinking uses an inflection 
consciously, and with great deliberation; the imagination modu- 
lates the voice more spontaneously and unconsciously. Imagina- 
tion makes all technique more transparent ; brings the modulations 
nearer the soul, the execution nearer the feeling, so that all tech- 
nical means are more concealed. Reason emphasizes more by 
isolation. 

The imagination is the faculty that deals with relations. If a 
book and a hat be placed upon a sofa, and an unimaginative 
painter asked to paint them, he will make a study with each in 
more or less isolation, — simply presenting facts clearly and defi- 
nitely. But the imaginative painter will look through the mere 
isolated facts concerning each object, and find a mystic kinship or 
connecting idea, and paint a picture full of expression. 

The chief language of imagination is the refinement and har- 
monious co-operation of all the modulations of the voice. 

There are, however, certain peculiar intimacies between the 
imagination and some modulations of the voice. One of these is 
touch ; as has been shown, the imagination excludes everything 
that is crude or exaggerated, and uses that which is more subtle 
and simple. Touch is especially liable to be perverted by mere 
mechanical or muscular use of the voice. Besides, touch is the 
most immediate and direct, effect of force upon the voice ; and as 
imagination is spontaneous and immediate iji its action, its pres- 
ence always gives delicacy, decision, and definiteness to the vocal 
touch. These qualities of touch also, when present, tend to awaken 
the imagination of the auditor. 

While imagination renders the touch delicate, it must not be 
understood that there is consequently a lack of force. Notice the 
intensity and decision of the touch, in the following extract : — 



VOCAL MANIFESTATIONS OF IMAGINATION: TOUCH. 



163 



" Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, 
On my heart your mighty charm renew ; 
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, 
Feel my soul becoming vast like you ! " 

And with joy the stars perform their shining, 
And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll ; 
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting 
All the fever of some differing soul. 



Self -Dependence. 



Arnold. 



Thus it is not alone in the delicacy and decision of the touch 
that imagination reveals itself, but in the variety of the "modula- 
tions of the touch which imagination causes. Sometimes there is 
a very important representative element in the touch; for in- 
stance, notice the difference between the touch in these two 
illustrations : — 

Swift ran the searching tempest overhead ; 

And ever and anon some bright white shaft 

Burned thro' the pine-tree roof, here burned and there, 

As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screen 

Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, 

Feeling for guilty thee and me : then broke 

The thunder like a whole sea overhead. 

Browning. 

Of a sudden the sun shone large and bright, 

As if he were staying away the night ; 

And the rain on the river fell as sweet 

As the pitying tread of an angel's feet. 

Alice Cary. 

Problem XX. Give a decided but delicate touch with the voice which 
will be as suggestive as the brush-stroke of the greatest 'painter. 

CHRISTMAS HYMN. 

It was the calm and silent night ! 

Seven hundred years and fifty-three 
Had Rome been growing up to might, 

And now was Queen of land and sea. 
No sound was heard of clashing wars ; 

Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain ; 
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars, 

Held undisturb'd their ancient reign, 

In the solemn midnight 

Centuries ago. 



164 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

'T was in the calm and solemn night ! 

The senator of haughty Rome 
Impatient urged his chariot's flight, 

From lordly revel rolling home. 
Triumphal arches gleaming swell 

His breast with thoughts of boundless sway ; 
"What reck'd the Roman what befell 

A paltry province far away, 

In the solemn midnight 
Centuries ago. 

Within that province far away 
' Went plodding home a weary boor : 
A streak of light before him lay, 

Fall'n through a half-shut stable door 
Across his path. He passed — for nought 

Told what was going on within ; 
How keen the stars ! his only thought ; 
The air how calm and cold and thin, 
In the solemn midnight 
Centuries ago. 

strange indifference ! — low and high 

Drows'd over common joys and cares : 
The earth was still — but knew not why ; 

The world was listening — unawares. 
How calm a moment may precede 

One that shall thrill the world forever ! 
To that still moment none would heed 

Man's doom was linked, no more to sever, 
In the solemn midnight * 

Centuries ago. 

It is the calm and solemn night ! 

A thousand bells ring out, and throw 
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite 

The darkness, charmed and holy now. 
The night that erst no name had worn, 

To it a happy name is given ; 
For in that stable lay new-born 
The peaceful Prinee of Earth and Heaven, 
In the solemn midnight - 
Centuries ago. 

Domett. 



VOCAL MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: PAUSE. 165 

The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one ; 
Yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun. 
The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one ; 
Yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done. 

Francis William Bourdillon. 



XXI. VOCAL MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: PAUSE. 

Another most dignified and important means of expression is 
pause. It shows the action of the mind as receiving an idea. It 
is the mind taking time to weigh and deeply realize the truth 
which it is to express. The absence of pauses denotes superficial- 
ity and lack of feeling. In proportion to the dignity and weight 
of the reading, the intensity and depth in the action of all the 
faculties of thought and feeling will be greater in number and 
length. Pause is one of the most dignified modes of expression. 

Hence, as the imagination gives an exalted action of the mind, 
and is always associated with noble feeling and a living energy of 
all the faculties, there is a greater tendency to use pauses when 
there is action of the imagination than in the expression of ordi- 
nary thinking. The pauses are needed to give the mind time for 
depth of insight, and also to give both speaker and hearer time to 
create, appreciate, and feel the complex ideas and situations. 

Moreover, imagination is contemplative; and contemplation re- 
quires time. Again, the imagination is reposeful; it does not 
didactically dominate, but sympathetically awakens attention. For 
these and many other reasons, actions of the imagination are espe- 
cially associated with periods of silence. 

I go to prove my soul ! 

I see my way as birds their trackless way. 

I shall arrive ! What time, what circuit first, 

I ask not : but unless God send His hail 

Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow, 

In some time, His good time, I shall arrive : 

He guides me and the bird. In His good time. 

Browning. 

Thus, pause is a special means of manifesting the imaginative 
action. As silence is the most dignified form of revealing mental 



166 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

activity, and as the imagination is associated with every struggle 
to express the ideal or deep realization in thought, so, as the most 
ideal action of the mind, it requires the most ideal and simple as 
well as subtle methods of emphasis, and the most exalted and 
noble modes of expression. 

I have heard the long roar and surge of History, wave after wave, — as of 
the never-ending surf along the immense coast-line of West Africa. 

I heard the world-old cry of the down -trodden and outcast : I saw them 
advancing always to victory. 

I saw the red light from the guns of established order and precedent, — 
the lines of defence and the bodies of the besiegers rolling in dust and blood, 
yet more and ever more behind. 

And high over the inmost citadel I saw magnificent, and beckoning ever 
to the besiegers, and the defenders ever inspiring, the cause of all that never- 
ending war, 

The form of Freedom stand. 
The Age-long War. Carpenter. 

WORLD-STRANGENESS. 

Strange the world about me lies, never yet familiar grown, — 
Still disturbs me with surprise, haunts me like a face half known. 
In this house with starry dome, floored with gem-like plains and seas, 
Shall I never feel at home, never wholly be at ease ? 

On from room to room I stray, yet my Host can ne'er espy; 

And I know not to this day whether guest or captive I. 

So between the starry dome and the floor of plains and seas 

I have never felt at home, never wholly been at ease. 

William Watson. 



In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God : he heard 
my voice out of his temple, and my cry before him came into his ears. Then 
the earth shook and trembled, the foundations also of the mountains moved 
and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his 
nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured : coals were kindled by it. He 
bowed the heavens also, and came down ; and thick darkness was under his 
feet. And he rode upon a cherub and did fly : yea, he flew swiftly upon the 
wings of the wind. He made darkness his hiding-place, his pavilion round 
about him ; darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. At the bright- 
ness before him his thick clouds passed, hailstones and coals of fire. The 
Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered his voice ; 
hailstones and coals of fire. And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them ; 
yea, lightnings manifold, and discomfited them. Then the channels of waters 



VOCAL MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: TONE-COLOR. 167 

appeared, and the foundations of the earth were laid bare, at thy rebuke, 
Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. He sent from on high, 
he took nie ; he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my 
strong enemy, and from them that hated me ; for they were too mighty for 
me. They came upon me in the day of my calamity: but the Lord was 
my stay. 

From Psalm xviii. 



XXII. VOCAL MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: TONE-COLOR. 

One of the chief means by which imagination manifests its activ- 
ity through the voice is in the modulation of the texture and 
resonance of tone. The delicate modulation of pure tone by 
imagination and feeling may be named tone-color. 

The color of the voice is wholly distinct from inflection. In- 
flection and changes of pitch are elements of form ; but tone-color 
has respect to the modulation of the quality and resonance. In- 
flectional modulation for the most part, as has been shown, mani- 
fests the logical relation of ideas. Inflection shows the rational 
action of the mind ; but tone-color manifests imaginative and emo- 
tional relations. 

There is an important difference between quality and color of the 
voice. There are legitimate qualities, — such as purity, mellow- 
ness, resonance, and openness, — which are always present in good 
tone; and, on the other hand, there are illegitimate qualities of 
voice, such as nasality, throatiness, or flatness. These are faults, 
and should never be used in noble expression. Tone-color is the 
emotional modulation of good tone. Nasality is a quality but not 
a color of the voice. A nasal or throaty voice can hardly be col- 
ored by emotion. In fact, the voice must be made pure, free, 
open, resonant, and elastic bj training before there can be any 
mastery or practice of tone-color in vocal expression. 

This principle, which is a fundamental one in all vocal expres- 
sion, has been violated by many " systems." The complete fail- 
ure to recognize tone-color, and the perversion of inflection, the 
use of abnormal qualities and stresses to express emotion, have 
been the chief factors in degrading elocution, and in making it the 
slave of the lowest forms of literature. Until this fact is recog- 



168 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

nized, discussion of the nature and action of the imagination in 
relation to vocal expression is useless. 

According to the mechanical system, only a few emotions can 
be expressed by pure tone; while according to the singer's, pure 
tone must be used in the expression of all noble emotion. There 
can be no doubt in the mind of any one that in all fine oratory 
and acting, the principles held by the leading teachers of song have 
been consciously or unconsciously obeyed. All noble emotions in 
any true vocal art manifest themselves through modulations of 
normal tone. It is only in the expression of secrecy of an abnor- 
mal type, and of the very lowest forms of anger, that an aspirate 
or throaty or nasal tone is used; and even in these cases it must 
only be suggested. 

Every emotion has a distinct modulation of voice peculiar to 
itself. Joy has one color, love another, and patriotism still an- 
other. The elimination of abnormal qualities of voice as elements 
in vocal expression makes possible a greater, more delicate, and 
more natural variation of the voice, as well as truer expression. 

Emotion modulates the color and texture of the voice, because it 
modifies or modulates the texture of the muscles of the body. It 
is the vibration of the muscles of the body which is chiefly con- 
cerned in producing the resonance of the voice. Any modulation 
of this muscular texture will therefore modulate the tone. In 
one emotion the muscular texture is firm; in another, soft and 
plastic. We see this in the face and in the hand. Instruments 
have been invented to measure the effect of the diffusion of emo- 
tion through the body. In this nervous diffusion and emotional 
vibration will be found the scientific explanation of the complex 
and beautiful modulations of tone in those whose imaginations 
and voices have been cultivated. 

In a well-trained voice all parts of the body are brought into 
sympathy and co-ordination. The emotional activity centres in 
the diaphragm and the muscles -controlling breath. Thus in a 
good voice the whole body is attuned like a vocal instrument, and 
emotion causes a sympathetic vibratory response. 

Sound is vibration, and anything that interferes or changes the 
vibration modifies the sound. The kind of timber used in a piano 



VOCAL MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: TONE-COLOR. 169 

or violin affects its tone. A tuner, after tuning a piano, may 
find one key where there is something wrong. He will examine 
the piano, and find that the cause is in some loose panel or screw, 
or in the presence of some foreign substance. If a mechanical 
instrument like a piano is so sensitive, how much more responsive 
must be an organic, living body, every part of which is in sympa- 
thetic relationship, and in fact a- vital portion of a muscular and 
nervous system ! 

Tone-color is the pleasing and ideal element in vocal expression. 
It is the most poetic and imaginative. It reveals the highest and 
most delicate feeling. It discloses the mystic depth of the soul. 

Resonance is often confounded with pitch. People desire low 
voices. Really, the desire is not for pitch, but for resonance. 
The sense of- resonance and tone-color is rare, and must be 
developed. 

The development of tone-color belongs rather to vocal training; 
but it is so important and so much neglected that it must receive 
some attention in this connection. 

The most simple course is to read imaginative and emotional 
lyrics as simply as possible, beginning with joy and love, admira- 
tion* of Nature, or some noble emotion. Noble emotion develops 
the nobler qualities of the voice. Husky tones and other imper- 
fections may in a great measure be corrected by the right practice 
of joyous lyrics, such as Wordsworth's " Cuckoo." 

Another method is to practise reading such short extracts as 
are found at the close of this lesson, in contrast with each other. 
Give joy in contrast with sorrow, and make the difference as 
delicate and as true as possible. The student must be able to 
define clearly twenty or thirty emotions without changing from 
the noble and normal qualities of his voice. At first, he will 
think it impossible to show so many differences ; but after practice 
and right control over his voice, he will discover that he can dis- 
criminate a larger number, and that the human voice is capable of 
indicating every shade of feeling. 

In such practice it is essential that constrictions, such as nasality 
and hardness, be removed from the voice. The tone must be 
round and smooth. The voice must be " placed." 



170 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

In such practice, it is far better to use poetic and imaginative 
extracts, because tone-color is ideal and refined, and reveals the 
imaginative nature. Where there is no feeling, there can of 
course be no tone-color. Those who speak invariably in a cold 
and neutral manner, without imaginative response, or without 
allowing the imagination to dominate the feeling, have, of course, 
no tone-color. The voice itself may be naturally resonant, but 
tone-color be wholly lacking. Tone-color is the imaginative and 
emotional modulation of the resonance of the voice. 

Work upon tone-color not only trains the power to distinguish 
subtleties, but it also tends to develop the imagination. Develop- 
ment of the imagination and of tone-color should go together. 

Problem XXI. Arrange twenty to thirty short extracts or lines, each 
with different emotion, and render them truthfully by the voice. 

Sing loud, bird in the tree ! bird, sing loud in the sky ! 

And honey-bees, blacken the clover seas ! there are none of you glad as I. 



Life is no idle dream, but a solemn reality, based upon Eternity and 
encompassed by Eternity. Carlyle. 

' Day is dying ! Float, song, down the westward river ! 
Requiems chanting to the Day — Day, the mighty Giver. 



Oh, Brignall banks are wild and fair, and Greta woods are green, 
And you may gather garlands there would grace a summer queen. 



Still, through our paltry stir and strife glows down the wished Ideal, 
And Longing moulds in clay what Life carves in the marble Real. 



Lowell. 



Oh ! the bells of Shandon sound far more grand on 
The pleasant waters of the river Lee. 

Higher still and higher from the earth thou springest, 
Like a cloud of fire the blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 



The last link is broken that bound me to thee, 

And the words thou hast spoken have rendered me free. 



VOCAL MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: TONE-COLOR. 171 

Merrily, merrily goes the bark 

On a breeze from the northward free : 

So shoots through the morning sky the lark, 

Or the swan through the summer sea. 

Scott. 



March to the battle-field ! the foe is now before us ; 

Each heart is Freedom's shield, and heaven is shining o'er us. 



O'Meara. 



I held it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones, 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 



Ah ! that lady of the villa — and I loved her so 
Near the city of Se villa — years and years ago. 



Waller. 



Never pay any attention to the understanding when it stands in 
opposition to any other faculty of the mind. The mere understanding, 
however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human 
mind, .and the most to be distrusted ; and yet the great majority of 
people trust to nothing else. 

What ho, my jovial mates ! come on ! we '11 frolic it 
Like fairies frisking in the merry moonshine ! 



I could not love thee half so much, loved I not honour more. 



The mossy marbles rest on the lips that he has press'd in their bloom ; and 
the names he loved to hear have been carved for many a year on the tomb. 

Holmes. 

One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, 
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree : 
Another came ; nor yet beside the rill, 
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. 



A song, oh a song for the merry May ! 
The cows in the meadow, the lambs at play, 
A chorus of birds in the maple-tree, 
And a world in blossom for you and me. 



172 



IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 



The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep. 



Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 
Deeply buried from human eyes ; 
And in the hereafter angels may 
Roll the stone from its grave away ! 



Up ! comrades, up ! in Rokeby's halls 
Ne'er be it said our courage falls. 



Back, ruffians ! back ! nor dare to tread 
Too near the body of my dead. 



No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, 
My oldest force is good as new ; 

And the fresh rose on yonder thorn 

Gives back the bending heavens in dew. 



Whitlier. 



Emerson. 



Shall I, wasting in despair, die because a woman's fair ? Or my cheeks 
make pale with care 'cause another's rosy are ? Be she fairer than the day, 
or the flowery meads in May — if she be not so to me, what care I how fair 
she be ? George Wither. 

Hence ! home, you idle creatures ! get you home ! 



We can show you where he lies, fleet of foot, and tall of size ; 
You shall see him brought to bay : waken, lords and ladies gay. 
The Hunters. Scott. 

And so beside the Silent Sea I wait the muffled oar ; 
Assured no harm can come to me on ocean or on shore. 
I know not where His islands lift their fronded palms in air ; 
I only know I cannot drift beyond His love and care. 



Modest and shy as a nun is she ; one weak chirp is her only note : 
Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, pouring boasts from his little throat. 



VOCAL MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: TONE-COLOR. 173 

— "Wake ! oh, wake ! and utter praise ! 

"Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ? 

Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ? 

"Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ? 
Mont Blanc. Coleridge. 

Oh, and proudly stood she up ! Her heart within her did not fail : 
She looked into Lord Ronald's eyes, and told him all her nurse's tale. 



The silent organ loudest chants the master's requiem. 

Emerson. 



Yet life is in the frozen bough, and Freedom's Spring is coming. 

Massey. 

Problem XXII. Select short extracts with subtle changes in the im- 
aginative conception and feeling, and naturally reveal these by the color 
and texture of the voice. 

Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, — 
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm ! 



"With foreheads unruffled the conquerors come — but why have they muf- 
fled the lance and the drum ? ... Ye saw him at morning how gallant and 
gay ! in bridal adorning the star of the day : now weep for the lover, — his 
triumph is sped ; his hope it is over ! the chieftain is dead ! But, oh for 
the maiden who mourns for that chief, . . . she sinks on the meadow, — in 
one morning-tide a wife and a widow, a maid and a bride ! 



Change as ye list, ye winds ! my heart shall be 
The faithful compass that still points to thee. 
Black-eyed Susan. Gay. 

I 've wandered east, I 've wandered west, through many a weary way ; 
But never, never can forget the love of life's young day. 

Motherwell. 



I told her how he pined : and ah ! the deep, the low, the pleading tone 
With which I sang another's love, interpreted my own. 



Too low they build who build below the stars. 



So nigh is grandeur to our dust, so near is God to man, 
"When Duty whispers low, Thou must, the youth replies, / 



Young. 



Emerson. 



174 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The bee to the heather, the lark to the sky, the roe to the greenwood, and 
whither shall I ? Oh, Alice ! ah, Alice ! so sweet to the bee are the moor- 
land and heather by Cannock and Leigh ! Oh, Alice ! ah, Alice ! o'er 
Teddesley Park the sunny sky scatters the notes of the lark ! Oh, Alice ! 
ah, Alice ! in Beaudesert glade the roes toss their antlers for joy of the shade ! 
But Alice, dear Alice ! glade, moorland, nor sky without you can content me, 
and whither shall I ? Sir Henry Taylor. 

GENEVIEVE. 

Maid of my Love, sweet Genevieve ! 

In Beauty's light you glide along ; 

Your eye is like the star of eve, 

And sweet your Voice as Seraph's song. 

Yet not your heavenly Beauty gives 

This heart with passion soft to glow : 

"Within your soul a Voice there lives ! 

It bids you hear the tale of Woe. 

"When sinking low the Sufferer wan 

Beholds no hand outstretch'd to save, 

Fair, as the bosom of the Swan 

That rises graceful o'er the wave, 

I 've seen your breast with pity heave, 

And therefore love I you, sweet Genevieve ! 

Coleridge. 

SONG. 

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, thou art not so unkind as man's ingrati- 
tude ; thy tooth is not so keen, because thou art not seen, although thy 
breath be rude. 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, that dost not bite so nigh as benefits for- 
got : though thou the waters warp, thy sting is not so sharp, as friend 
remembered not. 

Heigh, ho ! sing, heigh, ho ! unto the green holly : most friendship is 
feigning, most loving mere folly: then, heigh, ho! the holly! this life is 
most jolly. Shakespeare. 

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS. 

Oft in the stilly night ere slumber's chain has bound me, fond Memory 
brings the light of other days around me : the smiles, the tears of boyhood's 
years, the words of love then spoken ; the eyes that shone, now dimm'd and 
gone, the cheerful hearts now broken ! Thus in the stilly night ere slumber's 
chain has bound me, sad Memory brings the light of other days around me. 

"When I remember all the friends so link'd together 1 've seen around me 
fall like leaves in wintry weather, I feel like one who treads alone some ban- 



MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: CHANGE OF PITCH. 175 

quet-hall deserted, whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, and all but he 
departed ! Thus in the stilly night ere slumber's chain has bound me, sad 
Memory brings the light of other days around n.e. 

Moore. 



Where sweeps round the mountains the cloud on the gale, and streams 
from their fountains leap into the vale, — like frighted deer leap when the 
storm with his pack rides over the steep in the wild torrent's track, — even 
there my free home is ; there watch I the flocks wander white as the foam is 
on stairways of rocks. Secure in the gorge there in freedom we sing, and 
laugh at King George, where the Eagle is king. 

Wild Wagoner of the Alleghanies. Buchanan Read. 



XXIII. MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: CHANGE OF PITCH. 

Change of pitch is one of the most fundamental of all modula- 
tions of the voice. It is a universal characteristic of naturalness ; 
there is in fact a change of pitch between every word in conversa- 
tion. Change of pitch is one of the first effects of thinking, over 
the voice. 

There is, however, an unusual change of pitch which might be 
called change of key, that is very imaginative. It suggests a 
similar effect to that of light and shade. 

Observe, for example, in the following extract, how the voice 
distinguishes between each of the pictures by both color and pitch, 
in proportion to the vividness and character of the picture of each 
successive object or scene. How widely different is the picture 
of the river from that of the brook, and of both from the ocean ! 
But when we come to the predication of all these pictures, there 
is a much greater change of pitch, with corresponding changes in 
the texture and color. 

The hills, 

Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun ; the vales, 

Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 

The venerable woods ; rivers that move 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadow green ; and, poured round all, 

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 

Are but the solemn decorations all 

Of the great tomb of man. 



176 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Such changes as these are especially important in deep feeling ; 
and while intense emotion calls for an increase of tone-color and 
texture, yet the change of pitch and the touch are especially 
important from the fact that they manifest volitional control over 
the emotion, Whenever there is a tendency to drift in feeling, 
the true imaginative touch, which is always radical, tends to drift 
into a meaningless swell, or a so-called medium stress; while the 
changes of pitch become merely passive drops of the voice, which 
tend, on being exaggerated, to sing-song. 

There is one peculiarity about changes of pitch : they are not 
regular or rhythmic in natural expression. Rhythm is the regula- 
tion or continuity of force, and is always normally manifested 
through touch ; whenever there is a rhythmic modulation of in- 
flection or changes of pitch, we have an elimination of thinking 
in all its forms and a sing-song melody. Force is acting without 
being dominated by thinking ; the feeling is acting without being 
stimulated by the mental pictures. For this reason, there should 
be practice especially of change of pitch as directly expressive of 
the imaginative action of the mind. 

LITTLE BOY BLUE. 

The little toy dog is covered with dust, 
But sturdy and stanch he stands ; 
And the little toy soldier is red with rust, 
And his musket moulds in his hands. 

Time was when the little toy dog was new, 
And the soldier was passing fair ; 
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue 
Kissed them and put them there. 

" Now, don't you go till I come," he said ; 
" And don't you make any noise ! " 
So toddling off to his trundle-bed 
He dreamt of the pretty toys. 

And as he was dreaming, an angel song 
Awakened our Little Boy Blue, — 
Oh, the years are many, the years are long, 
But the little toy friends are true ! 






INTENSITY AND REPOSE. 177 

Aye faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand, 
Each in the same old place, — 
Awaiting the touch of a little hand, 
The smile of a little face. 

And they wonder, as waiting these long years through 

In the dust of that little chair, 

What has become of our Little Boy Blue 

Since he kissed them and put them there. 

Eugene Field. 



XXIV. INTENSITY AND REPOSE. 

Are there any general qualities or characteristics which show the 
presence of the imagination, or any peculiarities which show its 
absence in different forms of art, but especially in vocal 
expression ? 

When there is absence of imagination, there is a tendency 
merely to reproduce facts. Imagination breathes the life of per- 
sonality into art ; it unites the feeling and the fact. Absence of 
imagination is denoted by labor, by stiltedness, by loudness, by 
any crude modulation of the voice, by sudden and violent changes, 
by extravagant surprises of any kind ; the presence of imagination 
is noted by directness and simplicity, by unity in the midst of the 
most complex elements, by great variation and naturalness in the 
modulations of the voice, by a sense of hidden life and mystery, 
by a sympathetic response and co-operation of the powers of the 
whole man. Absence of imagination is indicated by the use of 
only one modulation of the voice at the expense of the others ; by 
the use of volitional, deliberative, or conscious force; by self- 
consciousness, and by a lack of natural vocabulary. Imagination 
brings a large vocabulary of the modulations of the voice, freedom 
from self-consciousness, with ease and naturalness. 

Among the many qualities of expression which are characteristic 
of imagination may be mentioned intensity. 

Intensity is in proportion to the activity at the centre. It pro- 
ceeds from control without destruction, the retention or the re- 
serve of the excitement which any emotion arouses without 
repressing it. Steam is intense in proportion to its compression 

12 



178 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

or confinement, and so with emotion. If there is no control over 
emotion, if the reader passively surrenders himself to the first 
impulse, passion causes mere noise or outward motions, and runs 
to waste. 

A normal human being is one whose thought and emotion are 
balanced by will. Thought without will or emotion is not natu- 
ral, and nor is will or emotion without thought. In the strong 
man there is co-ordinate action of the three elemental powers of 
his being. 

Hence, emotion naturally implies control. When emotion is 
controlled, its activity is diffused through the whole body. Emo- 
tion must especially affect the breathing, or the muscles regulating 
the breathing, so as to cause activity in the middle of the body. 
When the breath is elastically and naturally retained in connec- 
tion with emotion, the least touch of the voice will have character 
and power. This is the primary characteristic of the right use of 
the voice, and of a modulation of the texture and color of the tone. 
With such a retention of breath, every modulation suggests situa- 
tion, feeling, and imaginative action. 

Weakness is the result of a want of intensity in the expression 
of emotion. 

There are noble and ignoble elements in nearly every emotion. 
Sorrow, for example, may degenerate into a passive whine; but 
controlled, retained, and suggested, it awakens sympathy, and is 
noble and heroic. There are always two emotions which seem 
very much alike, but which are far apart. One is weak, and the 
other is strong. Brass may be so polished as to look like gold. 
Who can tell the difference between melted lead and melted silver 1 ? 
But the difference is brought out by time. Anger and indignation, 
sympathy and pity, excitement and hurry, intensity and nervous- 
ness, are only a few of the emotions too often confused with one 
another. 

The chief difference between emotions so closely akin is in the 
element of imaginative, stimulous, and volitional control. Sorrow, 
for example, implies a struggle for control over a certain emotion, 
while sadness is a passive indulgence of possibly the same feeling. 
The difference in these emotions consists more or less in the atti- 



INTENSITY AND REPOSE. 179 

tilde of the man. In fact, expression does not always directly 
manifest the feeling, but rather displays the attitude of the man 
towards it, his victory over it, or his yielding to it. Hence, con- 
trol of breath is the most fundamental agent in the control of 
passion, and the chief element in the expression of emotion. This 
is especially true of sorrow. It is the struggle to control sorrow 
that indicates the strong man. It is only a weak man who yields, 
and exhibits his tears and other effects of feeling. The strong man 
treasures his tears; he struggles with his breath until his voice 
is clear. Sorrow is thus an emotion which demands intensity and 
suggestiveness. 

All emotion represents either a stage of cumulation and pro- 
gression, or of retrogression and prostration. An emotion in its 
retrogressive or prostrate stage is indicative of weakness. Repose 
demands that emotion be expressed in a stage of accumulation and 
control. The steam that runs a locomotive is not merely the small 
amount that escapes in the piston. Steam has no power except 
from the energy of an accumulated and restrained mass behind 
that which is used. 

Emotion in the speaker or reader awakens sympathy and a cor- 
responding condition in the hearer, in proportion as its cause is 
suggested. No one can give an emotion to another : feeling can 
only be awakened; for the roused imagination of each hearer is 
the cause of his own emotion. It is for this reason that suggestion 
of the accumulation of emotion indicates strength, while an adver- 
tisement of exhaustion indicates weakness. In the expression of 
any emotion, the control or the retention of the condition, the sus- 
taining of the cause, is most important. 

There can be no laughter without control of breath. The ac- 
tivity given by the emotion to the respiratory muscles causes the 
laugh. An artistic or voluntary laugh is most difficult : few can 
laugh naturally before an audience. Few of the best actors have 
a good laugh. One explanation for this is the lack of control 
over breath, or the lack of the response of the vocal mechanism to 
imaginative feeling. 

One who tells a comical story must have control over himself in 
order to have any effect upon others. There is a comical picture 



180 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

called " A Good Story." One monk, with his hat on and an um- 
brella in his hand, sits erect with a smile on his face ; the other 
monk lies back in his chair convulsed with laughter. It is easy 
to perceive which told the story. The emotion of the teller is one 
of joyous surprise at its effect upon the other. He has controlled 
his own feeling so as to dominate the emotion of his listener. 

Intensity and repose, therefore, relate chiefly to the attitude of 
the man toward feeling and expression ; to the control of, or the 
power to reserve and accumulate, emotion. They are secured 
when the man is able to sustain his intellectual or imaginative 
activity in such relation to his sensibility as to accumulate and 
yet direct feeling. 

Dark, deep, and cold the current flows 

Unto the sea where no wind blows, 

Seeking the land which no one knows. 

O'er its sad gloom still comes and goes 

The mingled wail of friends and foes, 

Borne to the land which no one knows. 

Alone with God, where no wind blows, 

And Death, his shadow — doomed, he goes : 

That God is there the shadow shows. 

O shoreless Deep, where no wind blows ! 

And, thou, Land which no one knows ! 

That God is All, His shadow shows. 
Plaint. Elliott. 

Again, all emotion is expressed as ideally as possible. Of 
course, truthfulness or naturalness is a great law; but one may 
be weak and another strong. What is natural to a strong man 
may not be so to the weak one. Of course, art will choose what 
is natural to the strong rather than what is characteristic of the 
weak. A strong man, after losing his mother, does not go about 
whining and pouring out his tears and revealing his sorrow. He 
reserves it. His voice is more subdued ; he speaks a little 
slower; he shows effort in controlling his breath. Natural dig- 
nity requires this. There is a fundamental impulse in sorrow to 
cause tears, and to agitate the breath and voice ; but there is also 
an effort in the strong man to control it. 

There is thus in the expression of all the emotions a conflict of 
tendencies. In heroic, patriotic, or sublime emotion, the natural 



INTENSITY AND REPOSE. 181 

impulse is toward extravagance and declamation ; but at the same 
time there is an inclination to reserve. There is spontaneous 
effort everywhere in humanity to sustain conditions, and expres- 
sion must regard this. 

Thus we find from our study of emotion that the first or wildest 
impulse need not be the dominant one. There is co-ordination of 
impulses in all true abandon. Contrary tendencies toward excite- 
ment and reserve must be properly balanced in order to gain the 
repose and intensity which characterize all noble expression. 

THE OLD GRENADIER'S STORY. 

'T was the day beside the Pyramids, — it seems but an hour ago, — 
That Kleber's Foot stood firm in squares, returning blow for blow. 
The Mamelukes were tossing their standards to the sky, 
When I heard a child's voice say, " My men, teach me the way to die I " 

' T was a little drummer, with his side torn terribly with shot ; 
But still he feebly beat his drum, as though the wound were not. 
And when the Mamelukes' wild horse burst with a scream and cry, 
He said, " men of the Forty-third, teach me the way to die ! 

" My mother has got other sons, with stouter hearts than mine, 

But none more ready blood for France to pour out free as wine. 

Yet still life 's sweet," the brave lad moaned, " fair are this earth and sky ; 

Then, comrades of the Forty-third, teach me the way to die ! " 

Oh, never saw I sight like that ! The sergeant flung down flag, 
Even the fifer bound his brow with a wet and bloody rag, 
Then looked at locks and fixed their steel, but never made reply, 
Until he sobbed out once again, " Teach me the way to die I " 

Then, with a shout that flew to God, they strode into the fray ; 
I saw their red plumes join and wave, but slowly melt away. 
The last who went — a wounded man — bade the poor boy good-bye, 
And said, " We men of the Forty-third teach you the way to die 1" 

Then, with a musket for a crutch, he leaped into the fight ; 
I, with a bullet in my hip, had neither strength nor might. 
But, proudly beating on his drum, a fever in his eye, 
I heard him moan, " The Forty-third ta.ught me the way to die I " 

They found him on the morrow, stretched on a heap of dead ; 

His hand was in the grenadier's who at his bidding bled. 

They hung a medal round his neck, and closed his dauntless eye ; 

On the stone they cut, " The Forty-third taught him the way to die!** 






182 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

'T is forty years from then till now, the grave gapes at my feet; 

Yet when I think of such a hoy I feel my old heart beat. 

And from my sleep I sometimes wake, hearing a feeble cry, 

And a voice that says, ' ' Now, Forty-third, teach me the way to die ! " 

Thornbury. 



XXV. SUGGESTION. 

" There are, " said Professor Monroe, " three great words in 
expression, — imagination, sympathy, and suggestion." The last 
of these is vitally connected with the other two. 

Suggestion implies that all expression is only a hint, that truth 
and passion cannot be given adequately. Thought and feeling are 
subtle and spiritual, transcending all symbols. A word is but a 
conventional symbol, and all expression only an intimation. If we 
have seen an object, and have associated a word with it in common 
with others, the name will call up the object, and a more or less 
adequate conception of it will be formed. Other things being equal, 
however, all names are inadequate, and simply stand for ideas and 
objects familiar to ordinary minds. Hence such higher actions 
of the mind, as imagination and feeling, can be suggested only to 
corresponding faculties in other men. 

To understand this more fully, some study of the nature of 
expression will be helpful. We are apt to consider that thought 
and emotion can be given to our fellow-men. But, as we have 
said, this cannot be done. We cannot impart an emotion or 
thought to any being whose nature is unlike our own. All 
expression implies simply communion. It is the union of mind 
with mind. All that one man can do is to awaken in another 
mind the same faculties which are active in his own. A word 
evokes only ideas previously associated with it. A combination 
of words and ideas, however, may suggest new conceptions and 
truths, and arouse another mind to apprehend them. By an 
appeal to the imagination and to sympathy, one mind can be 
awakened by another to higher creative activity. 

Vocal expression uses a great many languages simultaneously. 
Inflection, however, and tone-color are not languages which furnish 
symbols or signs of ideas ; they merely hint in a natural way the 






SUGGESTION. 183 

degree of sympathy, the point of view, the purpose and feeling of 
the speaker. Words also are mere suggestions; yet they far more 
adequately represent ideas than do inflection or tone-color in the 
voice. 

In the expression of feeling, it is necessary to suggest the 
cause. A man crying on the street may awaken in the beholder 
either pity or ridicule, but the. emotion he feels himself is not 
awakened in another until he conveys the cause. Thus some 
forms of expression are necessarily associated with others. True 
expression of feeling must be associated with the expression of 
thought. 

Thus all expression must be complete; any isolated language 
will be a very imperfect medium. True expression is a complex 
combination of suggestions through various languages. Not only 
so, but where expression is made too definite and representative in 
the use of any one language, it is rendered more inadequate and 
superficial. The common-place expressions or statements of literal 
facts are never suggestive. The higher the subject and the 
deeper the feeling, the more expression is dependent upon 
intimation. 

Again, the subjects of the highest expression are not objects of 
sense. The great literatures of the world, the greatest subjects of 
human thought, have not been seen by ourselves: they belong 
to history, or are in the soul of man. Even with our eyes we see 
but the outside of things. The closest observer is one who not only 
uses his eyes, but his imagination. 

Poetry calls upon us to express ideas of eternity. We must 
conceive the transcendent ideals of the human mind. We must 
struggle even for an imperfect conception of God. 

We must express, in short, things which cannot be adequately 
conceived. How can we do this ? Take, for example, an extract 
such as this, — 

Koll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll ! 

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. 

Byron. 

No mind can adequately conceive the ocean. But to try to express 
the ocean itself is wholly to misconceive expression. Expression, 



184 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

especially vocal expression, is subjective; it reveals the attitude of 
the mind. It manifests the activity of the mind rather than the 
concept of the mind. It reveals the act of comprehending rather 
than comprehension itself. Hence, what can be done in such 
a situation is to awaken another mind with ours, to stretch out 
for a comprehension of the sea. We cannot conceive adequately 
the whole ocean, but we can show others how far our mind can 
reach; and as other minds are like our own, we can inspire them 
also to reach with us. The great speaker must have such a 
trained imagination that he can show greater activity of the mind 
in comprehending such things, and stimulate other minds to a 
greater stretch, and to act beyond their customary limits. 

The same is true of our efforts to express our conception of a 
mountain, or any unusual or sublime idea. 

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high : the power is there, 

The still and solemn power of many sights 

And many sounds,_and much of life and death. 

In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, 

In the lone glare of day, the snows descend 

Upon that Mountain ; none beholds them there, 

Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, 

Or the star-beams dart through them. — Winds contend 

Silently there, and heap the snow with breath 

Rapid and strong, but silently ! Its home 

The voiceless lightning in these solitudes 

Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods 

Over the snow. The secret strength of things 

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome 

Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee ! 

And what were thou, and earth and stars and sea, 

If to the human mind's imaginings 

Silence and solitude were vacancy ? 
Mont Blanc. Shelley. 

Here the mind must struggle to comprehend Mont Blanc, or a 
certain part of it. The reader may awaken the memory of one 
who has seen the mountain ; but no two persons have seen exactly 
the same things in a mountain, and if his expression is perfect, or 
in proportion as it is perfect, he will awaken in another mind a 
point of view different from his own. He will stimulate imagina- 
tion more than memory. 



SUGGESTION. 185 

Thus we can express the inexpressible. Man may awaken a 
higher conception of deity in the soul of his fellow-man. His own 
conception of deity may be very inadequate, but he does not 
express this; he simply awakens another soul to a sympathetic 
effort, to a higher struggle toward adequate conception. 

The highest expression shows the attitude of the man and of 
his awakened powers. It gives to another a point of view; it 
reveals the soul's effort and struggle. It shows the mind's sym- 
pathetic relations or bearings toward truth, indicates and draws 
another mind into sympathetic and corresponding activity. 

The chief agent of the human soul in manifesting its activity is 
the human voice. A word is a symbol of an idea ; it represents an 
idea. The modulations of the voice, its inflections, pitches, tex- 
tures, and color, cannot do this. But they can discharge as high a 
mission. They can show the active exertion of the soul; they 
can discover its sympathetic attitude; they intimate the powers 
of the soul which are active. Hence, of all forms of expression, 
vocal expression is the most suggestive and the most intimately 
associated with the imagination and sympathy. It can be degraded 
to the lowest depth, but it can also rise to the loftiest height, and 
manifest the greatest activity of the human soul. 

The noblest speech is not that which is greatest in itself, but 
that which most quickly arouses imagination and feeling. 

The true function of vocal expression is to suggest what cannot 
be adequately represented, to manifest and suggest what words 
cannot give. Delivery is a present active thing; it shows a living 
active mind. 

The highest activity of the soul is imagination, and its suprem- 
est law of manifestation is suggestion. If the voice is to be mod- 
ulated to manifest the deepest feelings and intuitions, the sublimest 
flights of the soul; if we are to feel that " The peak is high, and 
the stars are high, and the thought of a man is higher; " if we are 
ever to realize that there is " A deep below the deep, and a height 
beyond the height ; [that] our hearing is not hearing, and our see- 
ing is not sight, " — then no mechanical rules can be laid down. 
The imagination and the higher faculties must be stimulated ; the 
whole nature must be broadened, — in short, the mind must be 



186 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

brought to the highest possible conception and appreciation of 
poetic and artistic activity. 

THE VOICE AND THE PEAK. 

The voice and the Peak far over summit and lawn, 

The lone glow and long roar green-rushing from the rosy thrones of dawn ! 

All night have I heard the voice rave over the rocky bar, 

But thou wert silent in heaven; above thee glided the star. 

Hast thou no voice, Peak, that standest high above all ? 

"I am the voice of the Peak; I roar and rave, for I fall. 

A thousand voices go to North, South, East, and West ; 

They leave the heights and are troubled, and moan and sink to their rest. 

" The fields are fair beside them, the chestnut towers in his bloom ; 
But they — they feel the desire of the deep — fall, and follow their doom. 
The deep has power on the height, and the height has power on the deep ; 
They are raised forever and ever, and sink again into sleep." 

Not raised forever and ever ; but when their cycle is o'er, 

The valley, the voice, the peak, the star pass, and are found no more. 

The Peak is high, and flush'd at his highest with sunrise fire ; 

The Peak is high, and the stars are high, and the thought of a man is higher. 

A deep below the deep, and a height beyond the height ! 

Our hearing is not hearing, and our seeing is not sight. 

The voice and the Peak far into heaven withdrawn, 

The lone glow and long roar green-rushing from the rosy thrones of dawn ! 

Tennyson. 

And all day long a bird sings there, 

And a stray sheep drinks at the pond at times ; 

The place is silent and aware ; 

It has had its scenes, its joys, and crimes, 

But that is its own affair. 
By the Fireside. Browning. 

SONG. 

I dreamed that I woke from a dream, and the house was full of light ; 
At the window two angel Sorrows held back the curtains of night. 
The door was wide, and the house was full of the morning wind ; 
At the door two armed warders stood silent, with faces blind. 

I ran to the open door, for the wind of the world was sweet ; 
The warders with crossing weapons turned back my issuing feet. 
I ran to the shining windows — there the winged Sorrows stood ; 
Silent they held the curtains, and the light fell through in a flood. 






SUGGESTION. 187 

I clomb to the highest window — Ah ! there with shadowed brow 
Stood one lonely radiant Sorrow : and that, my love, was thou. 
I bowed my head before her, and stood trembling in the light ; 
She dropped the heavy curtain, and the house was full of night. 
From "Wilfrid Cumbermede." George Macdonald. 

We are spirits in a prison, able only to make signals to each other, 
but with a world of things to think and say which our signals cannot 
describe at all. " Carlyle. 

The lark above our heads doth know a heaven we see not here below ; 
She sees it, and for joy she sings ; then falls with ineffectual wings. 
Ah, soaring soul ! faint not nor tire ! Each heaven attained reveals a higher. 
Thy thought is of thy failure ; we list raptured, and thank God for thee. 
A Violinist. Bourdillon. 

YOUTH AND AGE. 

Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, 
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee, — 
Both were mine ! Life went a-maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, 
When I was young ! 
When I was young ? Ah, woful when ! 
Ah ! for the change 'twixt Now and Then ! 
This breathing house not built with hands, 
This body that does me grievous wrong, 
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands 
How lightly then it fiash'd along — 
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, 
On winding lakes and rivers wide, 
That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
That fear no spite of wind or tide ! 
Nought cared this body for wind or weather 
When Youth and I lived in 't together. 

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like ; 
Friendship is a sheltering tree ; 
Oh ! the joys, that came down shower-like, 
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 

Ere I was old ! 

Ere I was old ? Ah, woful Ere, 
Which tells me Youth 's no longer here ! 

Youth ! for years so many and sweet 
'T is known that Thou and I were one, 

1 '11 think it but a fond conceit — 



1§3 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

It cannot be that Thou art gone ! 
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd — 
And thou wert aye a masker bold ! 
What strange disguise hast now put on 
To make believe that thou art gone ? 
I see these locks in silvery slips, 
This drooping gait, this alter'd size : 
But Springtide blossoms on thy lips, 
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes ! 
Life is but Thought : so think I will 
That Youth and I are housemates still. 

Dew-drops are the gems of morning, 
But the tears of mournful eve ! 
Where no hope is, life 's a warning 
That only serves to make us grieve 

When we are old : 
That only serves to make us grieve 
With oft and tedious taking-leave, 
Like some poor nigh-related guest 
That may not be dismist, 
Yet hath out-stay'd his welcome while, 
And tells the jest without the smile. 



Coleridge. 



ABT VOGLER. 
[After he has been extemporizing upon the musical instrument of his invention.] 

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, 

Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, 
Claiming each slave of the sound at a touch, as when Solomon willed 

Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, 
Man, brute, reptile, fly, — alien of end and of aim, 

Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed, — 
Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, 

And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princes he loved ! 

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, 

This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise ! 
Ah, one and all, how they helped would dispart now and now combine, 

Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise ! 
And one would bury his brow with a wild plunge down to hell, 

Burrow awhile, and build broad on the roots of things, 
Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, 

Founded it, fearless of flame, fiat on the nether springs. 



SUGGESTION. 189 

And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was ; 

Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, 
Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, 

Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest : 
For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, 

When a great illumination surprises a festal night — 
Outlining round and round Home's dome from space to spire) 

Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight. 

In sight ? Not half ! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth; 

Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I ; 
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, 

As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky : 
Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, 

Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star ; 
Meteor-moons, balls of blaze : and they did not pale nor pine, 

For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far. 

Nay, more : for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, 

Presences plain in the place ; or, fresh from the Protoplast, 
Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, 

Lured now to begin and live in a house to their liking at last ; 
Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone, 

But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new : 
What never had been, was now ; what was, as it shall be anon ; 

And what is — shall I say, matched both ? for I was made perfect too. 

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, 

All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth, 
All through music and me ! For think, had I painted the whole, 

Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth : 
Had I written the same, made verse, — still, effect proceeds from cause ; 

Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told ; 
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, 

Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled : — 

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, 

Existent behind all laws, that made them, and lo, they are ! 
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, 

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. 
Consider it well : each tone of our scale in itself is nought ; 

It is everywhere in the world — loud, soft, and all is said : 
Give it to me to use ! I mix it with two in my thought : 

And, there ! Ye have heard and seen : consider and bow the head ! 



190 IMAGINATION AND DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared ; 

Gone ! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow ; 
For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared, 

That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go. 
Never to be again ! But many more of the kind 

As good, nay, better perchance : is this your comfort to me ? 
To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind 

To the same, same self, same love, same God : ay, what was, shall be. 

Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name ? 

Builder and maker, thou, of houses not marie with hands ! 
"What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same ? 

Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands ? 
There shall never be one lost good ! What was, shall live as before ; 

The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ; 
"What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more : 

On earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect round. 

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist, — 

Not its semblance, but itself ; no beauty, nor good, nor power 
"Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist 

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 

Enough that he heard it once : we shall hear it by-and-by. 

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence 

For the fulness of the days ? Have we withered or agonized ? 
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence ? 

Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized ? 
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear ; 

Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe : 
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear ; 

The rest may reason and welcome : 't is we musicians know. 

Well, it is earth with me ; silence resumes her reign : 

I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 
Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, 

Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor, — yes, 
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, 

Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep ; 
Which, hark ! I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, 

The C Major of this life : so, now I will try to sleep. 

Robert Browning- 



II. 

ASSIMILATION, OE DKAMATIC EELATIONS. 



XXVI. IDEAS AND EXPERIENCE. 

Adequate expression implies the presentation of ideas, thought, 
relations, and experience ; words are the symbols which form the 
medium of communication, and if they are not understood, there 
can be little communication of thought. But ideas must be rep- 
resented, and a correspondence brought about between the con- 
ceptions in the mind of the speaker and those in the mind of the 
hearer. Conceptions alone, however vivid, do not result in per- 
fect expression : they must be presented in such a way as to form 
a natural and logical sequence. Expression, however, may still 
be imperfect, as thought may be cold, abstract, and formal, and 
awaken little or no response. True expression must not only 
communicate thought, but awaken dispositions favorable or un- 
favorable to its reception. Thus, the ideal relations of conceptions 
must be given as well as their logical relations. Each conception 
must be presented as part of a situation, and each thought with a 
background. Something more than mere thinking is needed: the 
imagination and the artistic nature must be awakened. 

Even this is not all. Expression must manifest the man him- 
self. It must not only clearly convey his ideas and thoughts; 
it must show his feelings, his earnest convictions, his interest 
in relation to the thoughts he utters. Every thought, accord- 
ing to some psychologists, has a co-ordinate response in feeling, 
which is an essential part of it, and which must not be separated 
from it in true expression^ Where thought is separated from emo- 
tion, the voice will be cold and hard, and the expression neutral. 

The - utterance of words forms the mechanical part of vocal 
expression. It will be discussed under vocal training. 



192 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Conceptions in relation to vocal expression have already "been 
considered; also the logical relations of ideas, and the imagina- 
tion, or the ideal relations of ideas. *. 

The next step in our discussion is the study of the various de- 
grees and modes of assimilation, and the response to thought, or 
the effect of thinking upon feeling, the conditions of experience, 
and its relations to expression, — in other words, the dramatic 
relations of ideas. 

Next morning, waking with the day's first beam, 
He said within himself, " It was a dream ! " 
But the straw rustled as he turned his head, 
There were the cap and bells beside his bed, 
Around him rose the bare, discolored walls, 
Close by, the steeds were champing in their stalls, 
And in the corner, a revolting shape, 
Shivering and chattering sat the wretched ape. 
It was no dream ; the world he loved so much 
Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch ! 
Robert of Sicily. Longfellow. 

In these lines of Longfellow we find not only successive ideas 
in a logical sequence, not merely imaginative conceptions of the 
whole situation, and of every object or scene in succession, — 
elements which have been explained, but something more. The 
reader, thoroughly imbued with the imaginative situation, iden- 
tifies himself with each mental act. Each event occurs in natural 
order; the reader shares King Robert's bewilderment on waking 
up, his vague understanding of what has happened, his gradual 
realization of the truth. He hears the " straw rustle, " discovers 
the " cap and bells, " the " bare discolored walls, " " the steeds ; " 
feels dismay as he observes in the corner " the wretched ape." 
Then follows the full realization of all, — "it was no dream." 

The words, the pictures, the thought, the situations, or the 
feelings alone are inadequate; it is their harmonious union that 
produces perfect expression. Words are only symbols of ideas, 
and when given as mere objects of attention in themselves are 
not a means of expression. A single conception may be so iso- 
lated as to hinder thought ; for thought is a comparison of ideas, 
and requires continuity. With the revelation of ideas in sequence, 



IDEAS AND EXPERIENCE. 193 

expression really begins, because a corresponding current of ideas 
can be thus awakened in another mind. But this is not all that 
is required for complete expression. Expression, to tell the whole 
truth, must show the sympathy of the thinking mind; must re- 
veal the relation of the speaker to truth, his belief in it, or antag- 
onism to it, — in short, his point of view, his mental attitude, and 
the degree and character of his assimilation. 

To give a thought as such merely for the sake of thought may 
not only destroy interest in it, but neutralize and even pervert the 
truth it contains. Experience is a part of truth; or, at the very 
least, a realization of it. 

A wide difference exists between fact and truth. Truth is found 
only in the relationship and unity of facts, or in the union of fact 
with experience. The real truth in a poem, essay, or speech 
consists not in mere facts, but in feeling and sympathy. What 
is the real truth of the Twenty-third .Psalm 1 A mere neutral 
statement of its facts, however clear, cannot give its spirit. 

If nothing is perceived but abstract ideas, the result is common- 
place prose ; the real spirit and soul are lost. 

Experience gives definiteness of character; it implies the wis- 
dom of an expert. The word etymologically implies going through 
and coming out of something. Accordingly, experience is the re- 
sult of passing through and coming out of certain situations. 
Thus, experience in life develops character; the lack of the devel- 
opment of character is almost synonymous with lack of experience. 
Experience places a definite mark upon personality. The word 
" character " comes from the Greek, and means mark. In its 
highest sense it is applied only to a human being; but it may be 
taken in an objective sense, and applied to everything. In Na- 
ture, every pebble, every stone, every tree, every leaf, has its 
character. Each has passed through a specific and definite expe- 
rience, and received a peculiar mark. There is no monotony 
except in death. A machine may make a million buttons or pins 
alike, but whatever is a part of Nature has a distinct and definite 
character. 

All this applies especially to vocal expression. Each idea, each 
situation, each picture or thought, when properly conceived and 

13 



194 



ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 



assimilated, gives a specific and definite mark to every phrase, 
every word, every tone used in expressing it. Thus, a phrase, 
to have character, must have a manifestation, not of the thought 
only, but of the experience of the soul that thinks it. Expression 
has character in proportion to the union of thought with its asso- 
ciated experience. 

Monotony is the death of all true feeling and discrimination, and 
since all thinking starts in discrimination, if there is no difference 
suggested, there will be little thought awakened in speaker or 
hearer. 

The cause of monotony is not invariably, however, a lack of 
thought. It is frequently due to a lack of sympathy with the 
thought. Many persons are taught to conceal feeling, to render 
everything upon a neutral plane, or without any sympathetic 
relationship. Enthusiasm is not desirable in society; conven- 
tionality tends to repress experience ; so men give thought merely 
for thought, without assimilation of its spirit. Many seem to 
think it egotistic to give conceptions and experience at the same 
time. There is a certain form of self-styled culture, which 
consists in an assumed indifference to everything in life, pretend- 
ing to occupy a plane too high and exalted to be concerned with 
the ordinary events of existence. But this is not natural, and 
it is death to all artistic power. 

Every child utters not only its thoughts but its experience in a 
perfectly frank way. Neutrality is unnatural, and is the result 
of false education, of repression and conventionality. There is a 
natural instinct in the human heart to identify itself with the truth. 

We come, therefore, to an important step in expression, — the 
presentation of the truth by manifesting the whole personality : 
the development of the natural power to identify himself with the 
situation about which he speaks ; to reveal in expression his point 
of view, and his relations to the truth; to bring into harmony 
the natural witnesses to the truth, so that all expression may be 
the telling of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
truth; and to secure that assimilation which is the fundamental 
requisite of all effective oratory, which is not only the soul of 
histrionic expression and reading, but of speaking, — the mani- 



IDEAS AND EXPERIENCE. 195 

festing of the whole nature, the interpretation of truth by human 
character. 

Problem XXIII. In a simple sequence of conceptions reproduce all 
the actions of the mind and feeling which would result if we had ourselves 
been a participant in the events and scenes which are recorded in words. 

THE LATJREL-SEED. 

A despot gazed on sunset clouds, then sank to sleep amidst the gleam ; — 
Forthwith, a myriad starving slaves must realize his lofty dream. 
Year upon year, all night and day, they toiled, they died — and were replaced ; 
At length, a marble fabric rose, with cloud-like domes and turrets graced. 

No anguish of those herds of slaves e'er shook one dome or wall asunder, 
Nor wars of other mighty Kings, nor lustrous javelins of the thunder. 
One sunny morn a lonely bird passed o'er, and dropt a laurel-seed ; 
The plant sprang up amidst the walls, whose chinks were full of moss and weed. 

The laurel-tree grew large and strong, its roots went searching deeply down ; 

It split the marble walls of Wrong, and blossomed o'er the Despot's crown. 

And in its boughs a nightingale sings to those world-forgotten graves j 

And o'er its head a skylark's voice consoles the spirits of the slaves. 

Home. 



THE ELDER BROTHER. 

A gentleman of England had two sons, the eldest of whom, eager 
for adventure, and weary of the restraints of home, obtained his father's 
permission to go abroad. Ten years later, a traveller, prematurely old, 
covered with rags and dust, stopped at an inn near the paternal estate. 
Nobody knew him, although, by his conversation, he appeared to have 
had some previous acquaintance with the neighborhood. Among 
other questions, he asked concerning the father of the two sons. " Oh, 
he 's dead," said the landlord, — " been dead these five years, poor 
old man ! — dead and forgotten long ago ! " 

" And his sons 1 " said the traveller, after a pause; " I believe he had 
two." " Yes, he had, Thomas and James. Tom was the heir, but he 
was unsteady, — had a roving disposition, gave his father no end of 
trouble. Poor old man! poor old man! " And the landlord, shaking 
his head sorrowfully, drained a good tankard of his own ale, by way of 
solace to his melancholy reflections. 

The traveller passed a trembling hand over his own pale brow and 
rough beard, and said again : " But James, the second son, — he is — 
alive 1 " " You would think so, " said the landlord, smacking his lips. 
" Things have happened well for him : the old man dead ; his brother 
dead too — " "His brother dead?" said the traveller, with a start. 



196 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

" Dead, or as good as dead. He went off on his travels ten years ago, 
and has never been heard of since. So James has come into the 
estate, — and a brave estate it is; and a gay gentleman is James. 
What ! going, sir ? " " I beg your pardon," said the traveller, rising, 
"I — I have business with this James." 

He proceeded at once to the house of the younger brother, whom he 
found just mounting his horse at the door of the paternal mansion. 
James, taking him for a common beggar, repulsed him rudely, when 
the traveller cried out, in deep agitation : " James ! my brother James! 
Don't you know me? I am your long-lost brother Thomas!" 
" Thomas ! Zounds, Tom ! " said James, in utter astonishment. 
" Where in the name of wonder did you come from 1 " " The ship in 
which I sailed fell into the hands of pirates. I was sold as a slave in 
Algiers. I have but lately made my escape, and begged myself home. 
James ! " sobbed forth the wretched man, quite overcome by his 
emotions. " Bless my heart ! Is it possible !" said James, by this time 
recovering from his surprise, and beginning to think that for him to 
regain a brother was to lose an estate. " I heard you were dead. I 
have the best evidence that you are dead! — I mean, that my brother 
Thomas is dead. I don't know you, sir ! You must be an impostor, 
sir ! — Dick, send this beggar away ! " And without giving the amazed 
Thomas a chance to remonstrate, or prove the truth of his story, James 
leaped upon his horse and galloped off. 

The elder brother, driven from the house to which he was himself 
the rightful heir, penniless, and a stranger in his own country, 
returned to the village, where he endeavored in vain to enlist some old 
friends of his father in his behalf. His changed appearance justified 
them in refusing to recognize him; and his brother had now grown to 
be a man of influence whom they feared to offend. At last, however, 
he found an honest attorney to credit his story and undertake his cause. 
" If I win it for you," said he, " you shall give me a thousand pounds. 
If I fail, I shall expect nothing, as you will have nothing to give. And 
failure is very likely; for your brother will be exceedingly liberal with 
your money, and it will be hard to find a judge or jury or witness 
that he will not be able to bribe. But I will do what I can; and in the 
mean time I will advance you what money you need to live upon." 

Fully satisfied of Thomas's integrity, and moved by his expressions 
of gratitude to make still greater exertions in his behalf, the attorney 
resolved to go up to London, and lay the case before Sir Matthew Hale, 
the Lord Chief Justice of the King's bench, — a man no less conspicuous 
for his abilities than for his upright and impartial character. Sir 



IDEAS AND EXPERIENCE. 197 

Matthew listened with patience to the story, and also to the attorney's 
suspicions as to the means that would be used to deprive the elder 
brother of his right. " Go on with the regular process of the law," 
said he ; " and notify me when the trial is to take place." The attorney 
did so, but heard nothing from Sir Matthew in reply. 

The day of trial came ; and the elder brother's prospects looked dark 
in the extreme. That morning a coach drove up to the house of a 
miller in the neighboring town. A gentleman alighted and went in. 
After saluting the miller, he told him he had a request to make, which 
was that he would exchange clothes with him, and allow his coachman 
to remain there with the carriage until the following day. The miller at 
first thought the stranger was joking; and on being convinced to the con- 
trary, would fain have fetched his best suit ; but no, — the stranger 
would have none but the dusty clothes he had on. The exchange was 
soon effected, and the stranger, transformed to a white-coated honest- 
faced old miller, proceeded on foot to the village where the court was 
sitting. 

The yard of the court-hall was crowded with people waiting for the 
celebrated case to be called. Among them a sturdy miller — who must 
have come from a distance, since nobody knew him — was seen elbowing 
his way. The elder brother was there, looking pale and anxious. 
"Well, my friend," said the miller, accosting him, " how is your case 
likely to get on 1 " " I don't know," replied Thomas ; " badly, I fear; 
since I have reason to suppose that both judge and jury are heavily 
bribed, while I have to depend solely upon the justice of my cause." 
Finding a sympathetic listener, he went on to relate all the circumstances 
of his case in a simple and sincere manner, which carried conviction 
with it. 

"Cheer up, my friend!" said the miller, grasping his hand. "I 
have had some experience in these cases, and perhaps I can help you a 
little. If you will follow my advice, it can do no harm, and it may be 
of use to you." The elder brother willingly caught at anything that 
might give the least prospect of success. " Well, then," said the miller, 
" when the names of the jury are called over, object to one of them, no 
matter which. The judge will perhaps ask what your reasons are : 
then say, * I object to him by the rights of an Englishman, without 
giving my reasons why.' Then if asked what person you would prefer 
in his place, you can look carelessly round and mention me. I think I 
may be of some use to you, though I can't promise." 

Something in the honest old fellow's manner inspired confidence, and 
the elder brother gladly agreed to follow his directions. Soon the trial 



198 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

began. As the names of the jury were called, Thomas rose and objected 
to one of them. " And pray," said the judge, sternly, " why do you 
object to that gentleman as juryman 1 " "I object to him, my lord, by 
the rights of an Englishman, without giving my reasons why." " And 
whom do you wish to have in his place ?" "An honest man, my lord, 
if I can get one!'' cried Thomas, looking round. "Yon miller — I 
don't know his name — I'd like him." "Very well," says his lord- 
ship, " let the miller be sworn." 

Accordingly the miller was called down from the gallery, and impan- 
elled with the rest of the jury. He had not been long in the box, when 
he observed, going about among the jurymen, a bustling, obsequious 
little man, who presently came to him, and smilingly slipped five 
guineas into his hand, intimating that they were a present from the 
younger brother. " Yonder is a very polite man ! " said the miller, to 
his next neighbor in the box. " I may well say so," said the delighted 
juryman, "since he has given me ten guineas to drink our friend 
James's health." And, on further inquiry, the miller discovered that 
each man had received double the sum presented to himself. 

He now turned his whole attention to the trial, which appeared to lean 
decidedly in favor of the younger brother ; for while a few witnesses 
timidly testified to the plaintiff's striking resemblance to the elder 
brother, others swore positively that the elder brother was dead and 
buried. When his lordship came to deliver his charge to the jury, he 
took no notice whatever of several palpable contradictions in the testi- 
mony of these false witnesses, but proceeded to expatiate upon the 
evidence as if it had been overwhelmingly in James's favor. 

When he had concluded, the usual question was put to the jury : 
were they all agreed 1 The foreman rose, with his ten guineas jingling 
in his pocket, and was about to reply, supposing all to have been equally 
convinced with himself, by the same golden arguments ; when the miller 
stepped forward, calling out: "No, my lord, we are not all agreed!" 
"And pray," said his lordship, frowning with contempt and impatience, 
" what objections have you 1 " "I have many objections, my lord ! 
In the first place, all these gentlemen of the jury have received ten 
broad pieces of gold from the younger brother, while I have received but 
five ! " Having made this simple announcement, to the consternation oi 
the court, and to the amusement of the spectators, the supposed miller 
proceeded to point out the contradictory evidence which had been 
adduced, in such a strain of eloquence that all present — especially the 
elder brother and the attorney — were filled with amazement. At 
length the judge, unable to contain himself, called out with vehemence: 



IDENTIFICATION. 199 

11 Who are you ? Where do you come from ? What is your name 1 " 
To which the miller calmly replied : " I come from Westminster Hall; 
my name is Matthew Hale; I am Lord Chief Justice of the King's 
Bench ; and convinced as I am of your entire unfitness to hold so high 
a judicial position, from having observed your iniquitous and partial 
proceedings this day, I command you to come down from that tribunal 
which you have so disgraced. I will try this case myself." Sir Matthew 
then ascended the bench in his miller's coat and wig, ordered a new 
iury to be impanelled, re-examined the witnesses, and drew out confes- 
sions of bribery from those who had sworn to the elder brother's death. 
He then summed up the case anew, and it was unhesitatingly decided 
in the elder brother's favor. Anon. 



XXVII. IDENTIFICATION. 

Then the Master, with a gesture of command, waved his hand ; and at the 
word, loud and sudden, there was heard, all around them and below, the 
sound of hammers, blow on blow, knocking away the shores and spurs. And 
see ! she stirs ! she starts, she moves, she seems to feel the thrill of life 
along her keel ; and, spurning with her foot the ground, with one exulting, 
joyous bound, she leaps into the ocean's arms. And lo ! from the assembled 
crowd there rose a shout, prolonged and loud, that to the ocean seemed to 
say, "Take her, bridegroom, old and gray; take her to thy protecting 
arms, with all her youth and all her charms." 

The Building of the Ship. Longfellow. 

Ijf we read over the foregoing extract indifferently, or without 
re-living the situations, the expression of the voice is consequently 
negative and neutral ; but if the mind really sees each scene, and 
feels the movement of the events or situations, voice and body 
are freely and naturally modulated. 

Thus the real cause of genuine experience in oratorical delivery 
or dramatic expression, is the identification of the speaker or reader 
with the thought or situation. This is true whether we objec- 
tively represent the characteristics or actions of an object, or 
whether we manifest our own feeling for the scene or object of 
attention. In either case, unless the expression is meant to be 
cold and mechanical, or mere imitation, sympathetic identification 
of the reader with the scene must cause the experience. 

The soul of all true expression is sympathy. The imagina- 
tion conceives the scenes and situations, reproduces them in a nat- 



200 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

ural order, and thus awakens sympathy, and creates an emotional 
response. 

The true secret of assimilation and of truthfulness of experience 
is the identification with acts or events. This we do by holding 
the scenes and situations definitely before our minds. The ideas 
live and the events move; " ideal presence " dominates experience 
and determines the expression. 

THE THREE FISHERS. 

Three fishers went sailing out into the West — 

Out into the West as the sun went down ; 
Each thought of the woman who loved him the best, 

And the children stood watching them out of the town : 
For men must work, and women must weep ; 
And there 's little to earn, and many to keep, 

Though the harbor bar be moaning. 
Three wives sat up in the light-house tower 

And trimmed the lamps as the sun went down ; 
And they looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, 

And the rack it came rolling up, ragged and brown. 
But men must work, and women must weep, 
Though storms be sudden and waters deep, 

And the harbor bar be moaning. 
Three corpses lay out on the shining sands 

In the morning gleam as the tide went down, 
And the women are watching and wringing their hands 

For those who will never come back to the town : 

For men must work, and women must weep — 

And the sooner it 's over, the sooner to sleep — 

And good-bye to the bar and its moaning. 

Charles Kingsley. 

Possibly the simplest illustration of man's identification of him- 
self with an ideal scene, or with what has been called " ideal pres- 
ence, " may be found in a familiar story, such as "Paul Revere's 
Hide." The word " good-night " may be spoken in a hundred dif- 
ferent ways, according to the conception of the mind, or the expe- 
rience felt in the heart. The truthful rendering in this particular 
instance depends upon the conception of night, the danger, the 
patriotic endeavor, the resolution, and the pledge of the two men to 
each other which initiated a revolution. We then, witli these ele- 
ments in mind, observe the muffled oar, and each centre of atten- 



IDENTIFICATION. 201 

tion in succession. The intense feeling awakened makes the 
" Somerset " seem a phantom ship and its masts and spars the 
bars of a prison. 

In the same way we wander with Revere's friend Newman, shar- 
ing his anxiety and discovering the " muster of men, " " the sound 
of arms," and " the tread of the grenadier." We do not think 
consciously perhaps of what kind of a man he was, or imitate his 
conceivable actions ; but we put ourselves in his place. 

An imaginative atmosphere surrounds us in climbing the ladder. 
At one point fancy may so realize the churchyard and the whole 
scene below, that we are led to an objective representation of the 
wind's whisper "all is well." In this, however, there is 
danger of losing the central grasp of the situation, and passing to 
an identification with a mere accident. The movements of the 
central events and of passion must dominate the reader through 
successive steps. 

So of Paul Revere on the other shore: the reader may be an 
external observer of his acts until the events begin to move, and 
then, if he has genuine assimilation, becomes so identified with the 
movement of imaginary events that he participates in the scene. 

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul 
Revere, on the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five : hardly a man is now 
alive who remembers that famous day and year. 

He said to his friend : "If the British march by land or sea from the 
town to-night, hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch of the North-Church 
tower, as a signal-light, — one if by land, and two if by sea ; and I on the 
opposite shore will be, ready to ride and spread the alarm through every 
Middlesex village and farm, for the country folk to be up and to arm." 
Then he said good-night, and with muffled oar silently row'd to the Charles- 
town shore, just as the moon rose over the bay, where swinging wide at her 
moorings lay the Somerset, British man-of-war : a phantom ship, with each 
mast and spar across the moon, like a prison-bar, and a huge, black hulk, 
that was magnified by its own reflection in the tide. 

Meanwhile his friend, through alley and street, wanders and watches with 
eager ears, till in the silence around him he hears the muster of men at the 
barrack-door, the sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, and the measured 
tread of the grenadiers marching down to their boats on the shore. Then he 
climb'd to the tower of the church, up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 
to the belfry-chamber overhead, and startled the pigeons from their perch 



202 



ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 



on the sombre rafters, that round him made masses and moving shapes of 
shade ; up the light ladder, slender and tall, to the highest window in the 
wall, where he paused to listen and look down a moment on the roofs of the 
quiet town, and the moonlight flowing over all. 

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead in their night-encampment on 
the hill, wrapp'd in silence so deep and still, that he could hear, like a sen- 
tinel's tread, the watchful night-wind as it went creeping along from tent to 
tent, and seeming to whisper, "All is well ! " A moment only he feels the 
spell of the place and the hour, the secret dread of the lonely belfry and the 
dead ; for suddenly all his thoughts are bent on a shadowy something far 
away, where the river widens to meet the bay, — a line of black, that bends 
and floats on the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, booted and spurr'd, with a heavy 
stride on the opposite shore walk'd Paul Revere. Now he patted his horse's 
side, now gazed on the landscape far and near, then impetuous stamp'd the 
earth, and turn'd and tighten'd his saddle-girth ; but mostly he watch'd 
with eager search the belfry-tower of the old North Church, as it rose above 
the graves on the hill, lonely and spectral, and sombre and still. And, lo ! 
as he looks, on the belfry's height, a glimmer, and then a gleam of light ! 
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, but lingers and gazes, till full 
on his sight, a second lamp in the belfry burns ! 

A hurry of hoofs in a village street, a shape in the moonlight, a bulk in 
the dark, and beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark struck out by a 
steed that flies fearless and fleet : that was all ! and yet, through the gloom 
and the light, the fate of a nation was riding that night ; and the spark 
struck out by that steed, in his flight, kindled the land into flame with 
its heat. 

It was twelve by the village clock when he cross'd the bridge into Medford 
town ; he heard the crowing of the cock, and the barking of the farmer's dog, 
and felt the damp of the river-fog, that rises when the sun goes down. It 
was one by the village clock when he rode into Lexington. He saw the 
gilded weathercock swim in the moonlight as he pass'd, and the meeting- 
house windows, blank and bare, gaze at him with a spectral glare, as if they 
already stood aghast at the bloody work they would look upon. It was two 
by the village clock when he came to the bridge in Concord town. He heard 
the bleating of the flock, and the twitter of birds among the trees, and felt 
the breath of the morning breeze blowing over the meadows brown. And one 
was safe and asleep in his bed who at the bridge would be first to fall, who 
that day would be lying dead, pierced by a British musket-ball. 

You know the rest. In the books you have read how the British regulars 
fired and fled ; how the farmers gave them ball for ball, from behind each 
fence and farmyard-wall, chasing the red-coats down the lane, then crossing 
the fields to emerge again under the trees at the turn of the road, and only 
pausing to fire and load. 



CHANGES IN FEELING. 203 

So through the night rode Paul Revere ; and so through the night went his 

cry of alarm to every Middlesex village and farm, — a cry of defiance, and not 

of fear ; a voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, and a word that shall 

echo forevermore ! For, borne on the night wind of the Past, through all 

our history, to the last, in the hour of darkness and peril and need, the 

people will waken and listen to hear the hurrying hoof-beat of that steed, and 

the midnight message of Paul Kevere. 

Longfellow. 

THE PIPER. 

Piping down the valleys wild, piping songs of pleasant glee, 

On a cloud I saw a child ; and he, laughing, said to me, 

' ' Pipe a song about a lamb ! " So I piped with merry cheer. 

" Piper, pipe that song again ! " So I piped ; he wept to hear. 

" Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe ; sing thy songs of happy cheer ! " 

So I sang the same again, while he wept with joy to hear. 

" Piper, sit thou down and write in a book, that all may read ! " 

So he vanished from my sight, and I plucked a hollow reed, 

And I made a rural pen, and I stained the water clear ; 

And I wrote my happy songs every child may joy to hear. 

Blake. 



XXVIII. CHANGES IN FEELING. 

In all thinking there is a series of continual changes, the mind 
by progressive transition passing from idea to idea. As each idea 
causes an emotional response, how do changes of feeling compare 
with changes of ideas 1 Emotion has a more vital and immediate 
relation to the voice and body than thinking. Thought is revealed 
more by symbols, feeling rather by natural signs and languages. 
Hence, transitions of emotion are more definitely shown through 
tfhe action of voice and body than transitions in thinking. Emo- 
tion is a response to thought, a movement of the whole man, 
caused by ideas; hence, transitions of emotion are slower than 
transitions of thought. Thinking may be excited quickly, but 
passion is gradually aroused. Emotion flows like a stream, and 
admits only of direction and guidance. As the waves of the 
ocean slowly respond to the wind, and do not immediately subside 
when the wind has ceased to blow, so passion may not immedi- 
ately respond ; but when once aroused, it tends to increase, or it 
may react rhythmically. The domination of passion thus requires 



204 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

vivid realization of ideas, and frequently sudden and extreme 
changes of situation, which must during a pause completely 
change expression. 

Thought is manifested through melody and form, passion 
through rhythm and tone-color. Rhythm in expression manifests 
the pulsation of passion. Rhythm does not change so quickly or 
frequently as form, which is a perpetual change ; but its changes 
are very important, as they show the transitions in the weight of 
ideas, their importance, and the degree of excitement they awaken 
in the man, — his earnestness, his intensity, or his control. 

Transitions of experience are very important, because often they 
can be expressed only by an indication of change. Some of the 
deeper and more intense passions can be only delicately suggested. 
Some passions can be indicated only by contrast, or by a sudden 
reaction. Monotony of feeling causes sameness of movement. 
Passion has a strong tendency to drift into monotony. Natural- 
ness and power, therefore, depend upon the development of versa- 
tility, or readiness of response to every variation of thought and 
feeling. Development of control is dependent upon the union of 
the movement of passion with thought. Each change in situation 
must cause a change in feeling and expression. 

Problem XXIV. Read passages with changes of situation, giving 

such strong attention to each one successively as to cause a distinct feeling 

and expression. 

Thy braes were bonny, Yarrow stream, 

When first on them I met my lover ; 

Thy braes how dreary, Yarrow stream, 

When now thy waves his body cover ! 

Logan. 

One cruel blow had fallen on him, when Nicholas Nickleby cried, 
" Stop ! " " Who cried < Stop ! '" "I did. This must not go on." 
" Must not go on ! " " No ! Must not ! Shall not ! I will prevent it ! 
You have disregarded all my quiet interference in this miserable lad's 
behalf ; you have returned no answer to the letter in which I begged 
forgiveness for him, and offered to be responsible that he would remain 
quietly here. Don't blame me for this public interference. You have 
brought it upon yourself, not I." " Sit down, beggar ! " " Wretch, 
touch him again at your peril ! I will not stand by and see it done. 



CHANGES IN FEELING. 205 

My blood is up, and I have the strength of ten such men as you. I 
have a series of personal insults to avenge, and my indignation is aggra- 
vated by the cruelties practised in this cruel den. Have a care, or the 

consequences will fall heavily upon your head ! " 

Dickens. 



Warsaw's last champion from her height surveyed, 
"Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid ; 
O Heaven ! he cried, my bleeding country save ! 
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave ? 
Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains, 
Rise, fellow-men ! our country yet remains ! 
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high, 
And swear for her to live, with her to die ! 
Fall of Poland. Campbell. 

The heavens are veined with fire ! And the thunder, how it rolls ! In 
the hillings of the storm the solemn church-bell tolls for lost souls ; but no 
sexton sounds the knell. In that belfry, old and high, unseen fingers sway 
the bell, as the wind goes tearing by ! How it tolls for the souls of the sail- 
ors on the sea ! God pity them ! God pity them ! wherever they may be. 

Aldrich. 

Sir Harcourt fallen desperately in love with me 1 With me ! 
That is delicious ! Ah ! — ha ! ha ! ha ! I see my cue. I '11 cross his 
scent — I '11 draw him after me. Ho ! ho ! won't I make love to him ? 
Ha ! — Here they come to dinner. I '11 commence my operations on the 
governor immediately. Ha ! ha ! ha ! how I will enjoy it ! 

London Assurance. Boucicault. 

I only wish I 'd got him safe in these two motherly arms, and 
would n't I hug him and kiss him ! Lawk ! I never knew what a pre- 
cious he was — but a child don't not feel like a child till you miss him. 
Why, there he is ! Punch and Judy hunting, the young wretch, it 's 
that Billy as sartin as sin ! But let me get him home, with a good grip 
of his hair, and I 'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin ! 

Thomas Hood. 

Lady Teazle. For my part, I should think you would like to have 
your wife thought a woman of taste. 

Sir Peter Teazle. Ay ; there again — taste. Zounds ! madam, you 
had no taste when you married me! 

Lady T. That 's very true, indeed, Sir Peter ; and after having mar- 
ried you, I should never pretend to taste again, I allow. 

Sheridan. 



206 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

They are here ! They rush on ! We are broken ! We are gone ! 

Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast. 
Lord, put forth thy might ! Lord, defend the right ! 

Stand back to back, in God's name, and fight it to the last ! 

As experience gives character, what peculiar experiences give 
character to the lines in " Marmion, " called Lochinvar ? It be- 
longs to the age of chivalry; it has a heroic element; it is a spir- 
ited story ; it has the atmosphere of high comedy, with a rapid 
movement of events. Lochinvar must be introduced to theaudi- 
ence as an object of admiration. If the reader has no admiration 
for him, he can awaken none in his listeners. Admiration lies at 
the base of all noble feeling. A sympathetic relationship toward 
a subject alone makes experience possible. This admiration per- 
meates the first six lines. The changes in passing from Lochinvar 
to his horse, to his sword, are not very important. At the be- 
ginning of the second stanza we come to changes in situation. In 
the first two lines we see Lochinvar dashing across the country, 
and our admiration leads us to sympathetic identification of our- 
selves with his excitement and speed. In the second and third 
lines we even fly to Netherby before him, and realize what is 
about to happen there. Our sympathy for him passes into indig- 
nation at his enemies, and regret at the course of events. All 
hurry subsides, the rhythm completely changes. In the last two 
lines, at the sight of the supplanter, indignation gives way to 
contempt. All these changes of experience must be so felt as to 
change the expression. As Lochinvar arrives, his coolness re- 
stores our confidence. In the second line we keep our admiration 
centred upon him as we experience contempt for the cowardly 
bridesmen and brothers. As the father steps forward every word 
vibrates with his spirit. " His hand on his sword " must be given 
with his spirit of antagonism. It must not be a meaningless acci- 
dent. The way in which small phrases like this are given tests 
the real artist. This clause shows the gradual identification of the 
reader with the father, which has a climax in the quotation. 

Such changes continue throughout the poem. In the first line 
of the fifth stanza a subtle change in expression is caused by our 
admiration for the hero Lochinvar, and then for Ellen. We do 






CHANGES IN FEELING. 207 

not admire them in the same way. In the next line the feeling 
for them hoth causes another difference in the voice. In the third 
line the mother does not "fret" as the father "fumes." The 
difference, however, rests not upon these special words, but upon 
the whole clauses. Words only give a hint of a situation. The 
imaginative reader manifests his feeling and conception through 
the whole clause. Lines containing such definite conceptions and 
transitions of feeling should be practised as definite problems by 
all who wish to secure control over emotion, and to develop imagi- 
native and dramatic versatility. 

LOCHINVAR. 

O young Lochinvar is come out of the "West, — 
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best ! 
And, save his good broadsword, he weapon had none, — 
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, 

He swam the Eske River where ford there was none ; 

But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate, 

The bride had consented, the gallant came late : 

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, 

"Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 

So boldly he entered the Netherby hall, 

'Mong bridesmen and kinsmen, and brothers, and all. 

Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword 

(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), 

"0, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, 

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar ? " 

" I long wooed your daughter, — my suit you denied ; — 
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide ; 
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine 
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
There are maidens in Scotland, more lovely by far, 
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." 

The bride kissed the goblet ; the knight took it up, 
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. 
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, 
"With a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye. 
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar — 
" Now tread we a measure ! " said young Lochinvar. 



208 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

So stately his form, and so lovely her face, 

That never a hall such a galliard did grace ; 

While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, 

And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume ; 

And the bride-maidens whispered, " 'T were better by far 

To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." 

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 
' When they reached the hall-door, and the charger stood near ; 
So light in the croup the fair lady he swung, 
So light to the saddle before her he sprung. 
" She is won ! we are gone ! over bank, bush, and scar; 
They '11 have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar. 

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan ; 

Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran ; 

There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee, 

But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. 

So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, 

Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar ? 



Sir Walter Scott. 



KEENAN'S CHARGE. 

The sun had set ; the leaves with dew were wet ; down fell a bloody dusk 
on the woods that second of May, where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of 
prey, tore through with angry tusk. "They have trapped us, boys!" rose 
from our flank a voice. With a rush of steel and smoke, on came the thou- 
sands straight, eager as love and wild as hate ; and our line reeled and broke, 
— broke and fled; no one stayed — but the dead ! With curses, shrieks, and 
cries, horses, wagons, and men tumbled back through the shuddering glen, 
and above us the fading skies. 

There's one hope still, — those batteries parked on the hill! "Battery 
wheel ['mid the roar] ! Pass pieces ; fix prolonge to fire retiring. Trot ! " In 
the panic dire a bugle rings "Trot ! " — and no more. The horses plunged, the 
cannon lurched and lunged, to join the hopeless rout. But suddenly rode a form 
calmly in front of the human storm, with a stern, commanding shout, " Align 
those guns" [We knew it was Pleasonton's] ! The cannoneers bent to obey, 
and worked with a will, at his word ; and the black guns moved as if they 
had heard. But, ah, the dread delay ! "To wait is crime ; God, for ten 
minutes' time ! " The general looked around ; there Keenan sat, like a stone, 
with his three hundred horse alone, — less shaken than the ground. "Major, 
your men ? " — " Are soldiers, General." " Then, charge, Major ! Do your 
best ; hold the enemy back at all cost, till my guns are placed, — else the 
army is lost. You die to save the rest ! " 

By the shrouded gleam of the Western skies brave Keenan looked in 
Pleasonton's eyes for an instant, — clear, and calm, and still ; then, with a 






CONTRAST. 209 

smile, lie said, "I will. — Cavalry, charge !" Not a man of them shrank. 
Their sharp full cheer, from, rank on rank, rose joyously, with a willing 
breath, — rose like a greeting hail to death. Then forward they sprang, and 
spurred and clashed ; shouted the officers crimson-sash'd ; rode well the men, 
each brave as his fellow, in their faded coats of the blue and yellow; and 
above in the air, with an instinct true, like a bird of war their pennon flew. 
With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds, and blades that shine like 
sun-lit reeds, and strong brown faces bravely pale, for fear their proud attempt 
shall fail, three hundred Pennsylvanians close on twice ten thousand foes. 

Line after line the troopers came to the edge of the wood, that was ring'd with 
flame, — rode in and sabred and shot and fell ; nor came one back his wounds 
to tell. And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall in the gloom, like a martyr 
awaiting his fall, while the circle stroke of his sabre, swung 'round his head, 
like a halo there luminous hung. Line after line ; ay, whole platoons, struck 
dead in their saddles, of brave dragoons by the maddened horses were onward 
borne and into the vortex flung, trampled and torn. As Keenan fought with 
his men side by side, so they rode, till there were no more to ride. But over 
them, lying there shattered and mute, what deep echo rolls ? — 'T is a death 
salute from the cannon in place ; for, heroes, you braved your fate not in 
vain : the army was saved ! 

Over them now — year following year — over their graves the pine cones 
fall, and the whip-poor-will chants his spectre call ; but they stir not again, 
they raise no cheer, they have ceased. But their glory shall never cease, 
nor their light be quenched in the light of peace ; for the rush of that charge 
is resounding still that saved the army at Chancellorsville. 



XXIX. CONTRAST. 

Changes of feeling may arise in two ways: by contrast and 
gradation, or by natural progression or "retrogression. Contrast is 
the more salient of these, for deep feeling often changes naturally 
to its opposite, and there are certain emotions so deep that they 
can be touched only momentarily, or suggested by opposition. 

They sought him east, they sought him west, 

They sought him all the forest thorough ; 

They only saw the cloud of night, 

They only heard the roar of Yarrow. 

Logan. 

In the first two of these lines, the whole search is recounted 
with anxiety and dread, and in the last two the sad result, 
despair and anguish, are brought into opposition. 

14 



210 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Modest and shy as a nun is she, one weak chirp is her only note ; braggart 
and prince of braggarts is he, pouring boasts from his little throat : " Bob-o- 
link, bob-o-link, spink, spank, spink ; never was I afraid of man ; catch me, 
cowardly knaves, if you can. Chee, chee, chee." 

Robert of Lincoln. Bryant. 

Descriptive contrasts are often found. In these lines the two 
birds are delicately and harmoniously contrasted. We sympathize 
with her modesty and her poor chirp, and feel his pride and exul- 
tation. Her modesty and his sportive boastfulness are suggested 
and emphasized by contrast. 

Where shall the lover rest, whom the fates sever, from his true maiden's 
breast parted forever ? Where, through groves deep and high, sounds the far 
billow, where early violets die, under the willow. There, through the sum- 
mer day, cool streams are laving ; there, while the tempests sway, scarce are 
boughs waving ; there, thy rest shalt thou take, parted forever, never 
again to wake, never, never ! 

Where shall the traitor rest, he, the deceiver, who could win maiden's 
breast, ruin, and leave her ? In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, 
where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying. Her wing shall the 
eagle flap o'er the false-hearted ; his warm blood the wolf shall lap ere life be 
parted. Shame and dishonour sit by his grave ever, blessing shall hallow it 
never, never ! Scott. 

As certain shades of color can be distinguished only by oppo- 
sition with others, so in- this beautiful song the character of the 
false lover is shown by contrast with the sympathy of Nature for 
the true and faithful. With whatever definiteness of feeling the 
second part of the poem may be given, it will have little effect by 
itself. It is only by its opposition to the first that its real inten- 
sity is felt and expressed. Such contrasts should be thoroughly 
studied and harmoniously rendered by the voice. Practice like 
this develops not only that beauty of tone-color which is the 
highest charm of vocal expression, but genuine simplicity of feel- 
ing and resonance of the voice as well. 

The contrast must be very subtle and true. It must be a genu- 
ine opposition, and not a discord or mere change. As harmony 
in color demands great care in using the right shades, so in vocal 
expression great care must be taken that the right elements are 
brought into opposition. 



CONTRAST. 211 

A fever in these pages burns beneath the calm they feign ; 
A wounded human spirit turns, here, on its bed of pain. 
Yes, though the virgin mountain-air fresh through these pages blows ; 
Though to these leaves the glaciers spare the soul of their mute snows ; 
Though here a mountain-murmur swells of many a dark-bough'd pine ; 
Though, as you read, you hear the bells of the high -pasturing kine — 
Yet, through the hum of torrent lone, and brooding mountain-bee, 
There sobs I know not what ground-tone of human agony. 
Obermann. Matthew Arnold. 

At times there is a subtle imaginative contrast where two ele- 
ments or points of view are blended, the change from one to an- 
other occurring freely and alternately throughout the poem, as 
is the case in Matthew Arnold's Obermann. Here the roaring 
of the mountain stream, the mute snows, and the murmuring 
pines are used as a means of showing deep feeling. Without 
the contrast our sympathy and imagination could hardly be 
touched ; and unless this contrast is shown in the vocal expres- 
sion the spirit of the poem is not rendered. 

The one with yawning made reply : 

' ' What have we seen ? — Not much have I ! 

Trees, meadows, mountains, groves, and streams, 

Blue sky and clouds, and sunny gleams." 

The other, smiling, said the same, 

But with face transfigured and eye of flame : 

"Trees, meadows, mountains, groves, and streams ! 

Blue sky and clouds, and sunny gleams." Brooks. 

Contrasts cannot be rendered mechanically; they can be mani- 
fested in vocal expression only by means of sympathetic assimilation. 
At first thought the above lines are simply a contrast of indifference 
to interest; but when we try to express them we find, paradoxical 
as it may seem, that indifference cannot be expressed indifferently. 
A mere imitation of yawning and indifference awakens no interest. 
We must have a positive emotional attitude toward the indifferent 
man. We must in a sense enjoy him, and interpret his attitude 
with a certain earnestness which is our own. We do not express 
his indifference, but our own estimate of it ; we can express only our 
own feeling. " No man can give anything to his fellowman but 
himself." If style in writing is the man himself, this is much 
more true of vocal expression. So of the second man, while 



212 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

our sympathy is more positive, his smiling and eye of flame can- 
not be literally reproduced, — they can only be suggested by man- 
ifesting our appreciation, our admiration for his enjoyment of the 
real beauty of nature. 

This positive personal relationship, however, does not limit 
expression, — it exalts it, and gives it greater variety than the 
mechanical imitation that would summon up two men and imitate 
their supposed actions. Moreover, there is greater possibility of 
variety and truthfulness of interpretation by the sympathetic 
method. The reader, for example, may show contempt for the 
first man, or feel a humorous enjoyment of his inability to appre- 
ciate the beauty of his surroundings, and either might serve as a 
truthful contrast. 

Contrasts are often so delicate that they are entirely overlooked 
by an unimaginative reader. 

might we live together in a lofty palace hall 
Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall. 
might we live together in a cottage mean and small, 
With sods of grass the only roof, and mud the only wall ! 
Lovely Mary Donnelly. William Allingham. 

Yon deep bark goes where traffic blows 

From lands of sun to lands of snows; — 

This happier one, its course is run 

From lands of snow to lands of sun. 

O happy ship, to rise and dip, 

With the blue crystal at your lip ! 

happy crew, my heart with you 

Sails, and sails, and sings anew ! " Head. 

Browning's monologue, " Up at the Villa and Down in the 
City," shows how feelings or prejudices color objects in antagonism 
to the ordinary view, and for this reason the contrast should be 
exaggerated. The speaker has contempt for everything at the 
villa; even what others consider beautiful, "the hill o'ergrown 
with olive trees, " " the cypress, " " the ploughed land, " " the wild 
tulip," — are all ugly to him; and all that a normal mind dislikes 
in the city are to him objects of the greatest admiration. 

There is not only a contrast between the city and the villa, but 
in the attitude of the character towards what is usually felt in the 



CONTRAST. 213 

contemplation of such objects. In fact, we enjoy this piece all the 
more because our feelings are directly opposed to his. There is a 
contrast thus felt and suggested between the reader and the char- 
acter he is portraying. He is interpreting the very opposite of 
the feeling he would naturally have, and exaggerates and enjoys it 
all the more for this very reason. The emotion is dramatic, but is 
perfectly natural. Dramatic emotion in lower comedy and farce 
has often this character of opposition. The feeling of this "Italian 
person of quality" is given with great zest, but in such a way as 
to show the peculiarities of his character, and if not to awaken 
ridicule, certainly in such a way as to strengthen the very opposite 
feeling in the hearer toward these objects. 

UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY. 
[As distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality.] 
Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, 
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square ; 
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there ! 

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least ! 

There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast ; 

While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast. 

Well now, look at our villa ! stuck like the horn of a bull 

Just on a mountain's edge as bare as the creature's skull, 

Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull ! 

— I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair 's turned wool. 

But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses ! Why ? 

They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there 's something to take the eye ! 

Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry ! 

You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by : 

Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high ; 

And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly. 

What of a villa ? Though winter be over in March by rights, 
'T is May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights : 
You 've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, 
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive trees. 

Is it better in May, I ask you ? you 've summer all at once ; 
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns ! 
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, 
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell, 
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. 



214 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Is it ever hot in the square ? There 's a fountain to spout and splash ! 
In the shade it sings and springs ; in the shine such foam-bows flash 
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash 
Round the lady atop in the conch — fifty gazers do not abash, 
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash ! 

All the year long at the villa, nothing 's to see though you linger, 

Except yon cypress that points like Death's lean lifted forefinger. 

Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix in the corn and mingle, 

Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. 

Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill, 

And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. 

Enough of the seasons, — I spare you the months of the fever and chill. 

Ere opening your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin : 

No sooner the bells leave off, than the diligence rattles in : 

You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. 

By and by there 's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth ; 

Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. 

At the post-office such a scene-picture — the new play, piping hot! 

And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. 

Above it, behold the archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, 

And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's ! 

Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so 

Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and Cicero, 

"And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the skirts of Saint Paul 

has reached, 
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he 

preached." 
Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession ! our Lady borne smiling and 

smart 
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart ! 
Bang, whang, whang, goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife ; 
No keeping one's haunches still : it 's the greatest pleasure in life. 

But bless you, it 's dear — it 's dear ! fowls, wine, at double the rate. 

They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passiug the gate 

It 's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city ! 

Beggars can scarcely be choosers — but still — ah, the pity, the pity ! 

Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, 

And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles. 

One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, 

And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of 

scandals. 

Bang, whang, whang, goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife. 

Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life! 

Browning. 



CONTRAST. 215 

"Two hands upon the breast, and labor's done ; 
Two pale feet crossed in rest — the race is won ; 
Two eyes with coin-weights shut, and all tears cease ; 
Two lips where grief is mute, anger at peace ; " — 
So pray we oftentimes, mourning our lot : 
God in his kindness answereth not. 

" Two hands to work addrest aye for his praise ; 
Two feet that never rest walking his ways ; 
Two eyes that look above through all their tears ; 
Two lips still breathing love, not wrath nor fears ; " — 
So pray we afterwards, low on our knees ; 
Pardon those erring prayers ! Father, hear these ! 
Now and Afterwards. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik. 

PAIN IN A PLEASURE BOAT. 

Boatman. Shove off there ! — ship the rudder, Bill — cast off ! she 's under 

way ! 
Mrs. F. She 's under what ? — I hope she 's not ! good gracious, what a spray! 
B. Run out the jib, and rig the boom ! keep clear of those two brigs ! 
M. I hope they don't intend some joke by running of their rigs ! 
B. Bill, shift them bags of ballast aft — she 's rather out of trim ! 
M. Great bags of stones ! they 're pretty things to help a boat to swiin ! 
B. The wind is fresh — if she don't scud, it 's not the breeze's fault ! 
M. Wind fresh, indeed !" I never felt the air so full of salt ! 
B. That schooner, Bill, harn't left the roads, with oranges and nuts. 
M. If seas have roads, they 're very rough — I never felt such ruts ! 
B. It's neap, ye see, she 's heavy lade, and couldn't pass the bar. 
M. The bar ! what, roads with turnpikes too ? I wonder where tbey are ! 
B. Ho ! Brig ahoy ! hard up ! hard up ! that lubber cannot steer ! 
M. Yes, yes — hard up upon a rock ! I know some danger 's near ! 

Lord, there 's a wave ! it 's coming in ! and roaring like a bull ! 
B. Nothing, ma'am, but a little slop ! Go large, Bill ! keep her full ! 
M. What, keep her full ! what daring work ! when full, she must go down ! 
B. Why, Bill, it lulls ! ease off a bit — it 's coming off the town ! 

Steady your helm ! we '11 clear the Pint ! lay right for yonder pink ! 
M. Be steady — well, I hope they can ! but they 've got a pint of drink ! 
B. Bill, give that sheet another haul — she '11 fetch it up this reach. 
M. I 'm getting rather pale, I know, and they know it by that speech ! 

I wonder what it is, now, but — I never felt so queer ! 
B. Bill, mind your luff — why, Bill, I say,, she 's yawing — keep her near f 
M. Keep near ! we 're going farther off ; the land 's behind our backs. 
B. Be easy, ma'am, it 's all correct, that 's only 'cause we tacks ; 

We shall have to beat about a bit — Bill, keep her out to sea. 
M. Beat who about ? keep who at sea ? — how black they look at me ! 



216 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

B. It 's veering round — I knew it would ! off with her head ! stand by ! 

M. Off with her head ! whose ? where ? what with ? — an axe I seem to spy ! 

B. She can't keep her own, you see ; we shall have to pull her in ! 

M. They '11 drown me, and take all I have ! my life's not worth a pin ! 

B. Look out, you know, be ready, Bill — just when she takes the sand ! 

M. The sand — Lord ! to stop my mouth ! how everything is planned ! 

B. The handspike, Bill — quick, bear a hand ! now, ma'am, just step ashore ! 

M. What ! ain't I going to be killed — and weltered in my gore ? 

Well, Heaven be praised ! but I '11 not go a-sailing any more ! 

Hood. 



XXX. GRADATION. 

Contrast in transition of feeling occurs occasionally, and is of 
importance ; but gradation or progression of emotion is continually 
taking place, even in connection with contrast, and is still more 
important. The power to grade, accumulate, control, or to show 
retrogressive truthfulness of feeling, is the especial mark of a true 
vocal artist. As in painting the subtle variety of one tone shows 
the artist in color, as in music the delicate crescendo or diminu- 
endo reveals the power of the musician, so the ability to indicate 
the accumulation or progressive transition of emotion shows the 
greatest power in vocal expression. 

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! 
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest I 
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm ! 
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! 
Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! 
Utter forth " God ! " and fill the hills with praise ! 

In these lines there is a climax in the objects presented, and 
a gradual progression and increase of the feeling of sublimity. 
Starting with the living flowers, the mind climbs to the eagles 
and the lightnings. This gradual progression of feeling is not 
only necessary, but very effective. There must be reserve and 
delicacy in the first in order to give possibility of gradation. 

— Flower in the crannied wall, 

I pluck you out of the crannies ; — 

Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 

Little flower ; — but if I could understand 

What you are, root and all, and all in all, 

I should know what God and man is. 

Tennyson. 



GRADATION. 217 

There is here a gradual transition from objective observation to 
the deepest subjective contemplation. The flower is admired, 
first, as an object of attention in the wall. Then it is brought 
nearer, in the hand; then still nearer, in sympathy and admira- 
tion, it becomes a window through which the soul looks out into 
the eternal mystery. 

Contrast and gradation are rarely separated. The secret of 
them both is the sympathetic identification of the reader's mind 
with the situations or events, or with a process of thought in 
another mind. 

Hardly any practice can be arranged which will more effectively 
develop truthfulness of feeling and responsive co-ordination of the 
whole nature of man than the practice of various forms of transi- 
tion. Contrast and gradation include only two forms of changes 
in feeling. There are subtle transitions in every great work from 
the objective to the subjective, from the didactic to the spiritual; 
in the person addressed, or in the situation, which the speaker or 
reader or actor must interpret, or the result will be monotonous 
and mechanical. Monotony is not only the worst of faults, — it is 
associated with many faults; for it results from a failure to think 
genuinely each idea, and to feel truly each specific situation, — 
the soul of all naturalness and power in expression. 

Transitions occur in the most dignified poetry and literature, 
and nowhere more frequently than in the Scriptures. Note, for 
example, the rendering of any of the parables, or an account of 
the miracles in the gospels. How sudden are the changes of situ- 
ation and experience in the prophets ! What subtle transitions 
of experience in the parallelisms of Hebrew poetry ! What ab- 
rupt transitions in the Psalms from talking to man to a direct 
address to God ! Yet these sudden changes are perfectly natural 
to any one whose imaginative nature has been trained, or who has 
preserved the dramatic naturalness of the child. 

In the deepest and most exalted lyric feeling, the gradations are 
very delicate. In "Nathan Hale," for example, one strong situ- 
ation is held vividly before the mind from first to last. There are 
many changes and references, but the brave hero led forth to die 
is the conception which dominates our emotion. The marked 



218 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

changes of transition do not greatly affect the flow of this intense 
stream. The same is true, also, of the " Three Fishers, " by 
Kingsley. 

NATHAN HALE. 

To drum-beat and heart-beat, a soldier marches by: 
There is color in his cheek, there is courage in his eye, 
Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat in a moment he must die. 
By starlight and moonlight, he seeks the Briton's camp ; 
He hears the rustling flag, and the armed sentry's tramp ; 
And the starlight and moonlight his silent wanderings lamp. 

With slow tread and still tread he scans the tented line, 

And he counts the battery guns by the gaunt and shadowy pine ; 

And his slow tread and still tread gives no warning sign. 

The dark wave, the plumed wave, it meets his eager glance ; 

And it sparkles 'neath the stars, like the glimmer of a lance, — 

A dark wave, a plumed wave, on an emerald expanse. 

A sharp clang, a steel clang, and terror in the sound ! 

For the sentry, falcon-eyed, in the camp a spy hath found ; 

With a sharp clang, a steel clang, the patriot is bound. 

With calm brow, steady brow, he listens to his doom ; 

In his look .there is no fear, nor a shadow-trace of gloom ; 

But with calm brow, steady brow, he robes him for the tomb. 

In the long night, the still night, he kneels upon the sod ; 
And the brutal guards withhold e'en the solemn Word of God ! 
In the long night, the still night, he walks where Christ hath trod. 
'Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn, he dies upon the tree ; 
And he mourns that he can lose but one life for Liberty ; 
And in the blue morn, the sunny morn, his spirit-wings are free. 

But his last words, his message-words, they burn, lest friendly eye 
Should read how proud and calm a patriot could die, 
With his last words, his dying words, a soldier's battle-cry. 
From Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf, from monument and urn, 
The sad of earth, the glad of heaven his tragic fate shall learn ; 
And on Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf the name of Hale shall burn ! 

Francis M. Finch. 

And the men turned from thence, and went toward Sodom : but 
Abraham stood yet before the Lord. 

And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou destroy the righteous 
with the wicked ? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the 
city : wilt thou destroy, and not spare the place for the fifty righteous 
that are therein ? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to 



GRADATION. 



219 



slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous should be as 
the wicked ; that be far from thee : shall not the Judge of all the earth 
do right 1 And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous, within 
the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. 

And Abraham answered, and said, Behold now, I have taken upon 
me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes : Perad ven- 
ture there shall lack five of the fifty righteous : wilt thou destroy all the 
city for lack of five ? And he said, I will not destroy it if I find there 
forty and five. And he spake unto him yet again, and said, "Perad ven- 
ture there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for 
the forty's sake. 

And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will 
speak : Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I 
will not do it, if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have 
taken upon me to speak unto the Lord : Peradventure there shall be 
twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for the twenty's 
sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak 
yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he 
said, I will not destroy it for the ten's sake. And the Lord went his 
way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham : and Abraham 
returned unto his place. 



THE HAPPY HEART. 

Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers ? 

sweet content ! 
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed ? 

punishment ! 
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed 
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers ? 
sweet content ! sweet sweet content ! 

"Work apace, apace, apace, apace ; 

Honest labour bears a lovely face ; 
Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny ! 

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring ? 

sweet content ! 
Swimm'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears ? 

punishment ! 
Then he that patiently want's burden bears 
No burden bears, but is a king, a king ! 
sweet content ! sweet sweet content ! 

"Work apace, apace, apace, apace ; 

Honest labour bears a lovely face ; 
Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny ! Dekher. 



220 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

With cautious step, and ear awake, 

He climbs the crag and threads the brake ; 

And not the summer solstice, there, 

Temper'd the midnight mountain air, 

But every breeze, that swept the wold, 

Benumb'd his drenched limbs with cold. 

In dread, in danger, and alone, 

Famish'd and chill'd, through ways unknown, 

Tangled and steep, he journey'd on ; 

Till, as a rock's huge point he turn'd, 

A watch-fire close before him burn'd. 

Beside its embers red and clear, 
Bask'd, in his plaid, a mountaineer ; 
And up he sprung with sword in hand, — 
" Thy name and purpose ! Saxon, stand ! " — 
" A stranger." — " What dost thou require ? " — 
'* Rest and a guide, and food and fire. 
My life 's beset, my path is lost, 
The gale has chill'd my limbs with frost." — 
"Art thou a friend to Roderick ? " — " No." — 
"Thou darest not call thyself a foe ? " — 
" I dare ! to him and all the band 
He brings to aid his murderous hand." 
Lady of the Lake. Scott. 



XXXI. IMITATION AND ASSIMILATION. 

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, 
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows ; 
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. 

The method usually adopted in rendering these lines is to imi- 
tate the breeze in the expression of the first and the second lines, 
and then to imitate the lashing of the waves in the last two lines. 
In this way, it is argued, there is given variety in objective 
representation. 

We find, however, that there is a different method of giving 
expression to the different ideas. We can create imaginatively 
the two images or illustrations, and instead of putting ourselves 
into an attitude of mind to objectively represent or imitate them, 
we can manifest the feeling they awaken. 



IMITATION AND ASSIMILATION. 221 

The first of these methods may be called imitation; the second 
may be here named Assimilation. Which of the two is the right 
one? No more important question can be asked for the higher 
development of vocal expression. 

Ideas, of course, are not words. The word " imitation " is 
used in many senses by different writers. Coleridge says the 
word " copying " should be used for the lower form of objective 
representation, and that the word " imitation " should be reserved 
for its higher aspect. Ruskin, on the contrary, uses imitation as 
synonymous with the lowest form of copying, and as antagonistic 
to all true artistic representation. Most writers use the word in 
the sense of Ruskin. 

To Aristotle, art was the imitation of Nature ; but Nature to the 
Greeks was a process, not a product. The imitation of a process, 
especially that of Nature, is totally different from the imitation of 
a product, an expression, objective sound, or character. 

In one sense of the word imitation, all education starts with it. 
The little child learns to speak, some think, by imitation; but 
there is a spontaneous impulse to utterance before it is able to 
imitate a word. This spontaneous impulse from within is the 
chief cause of language. Imitation must be adopted occasionally 
in the teaching of vocal training, and to some extent in vocal 
"expression ; but it is an expedient used only for stimulation of the 
psychic processes, or to bring them into relation with other 
minds. Those who prefer the terms " Mechanical Imitation " and 
" Sympathetic Imitation, " in place of the words used here, — 
Imitation and Assimilation, — would, of course, make the same dis- 
tinction. However they may be named, there are two essentially 
different processes or methods in expression. One method en- 
deavors by mechanical expedients to re-produce certain external 
facts; the other centres in the man and manifests the impres- 
sions made upon him, — gives his feeling for the object, rather 
than attempts to represent the object itself. The one expresses 
external differences;* the other reveals the subjective differences 
in the impression produced upon the man. 

If vocal expression is taught by imitation, the originality and 
the special power of each individual are destroyed, and sameness 



222 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

is sure to result. The lowest literature or art has much imitation; 
the highest has little, or none at all. 

CHAMOTJNI AT SUNRISE.* 

From the deep shadow of the still fir-groves 
Trembling I look to thee, eternal height ! 
Thou dazzling summit, from whose top my soul 
Floats, with dimmed vision, to the infinite ! 

Who sank in earth's firm lap the pillars deep 
Which hold through ages thy vast pile in place ? 
Who reared on high, in the clear ether's vault, 
Lofty and strong, thy ever-radiant face ? 

Who poured you forth, ye mountain torrents wild, 
Down thundering from eternal winter's breast ? 
And who commanded, with almighty voice, 
"Here let the stiffening billows find their rest " ? 

Who points to yonder morning-star his path, 
Borders with wreaths of flowers the eternal frost ? 
To whom, in awful music, cries the stream, 
wild Arveiron ! in fierce tumult tossed ? 

Jehovah ! God ! bursts from the crashing ice ; 
The avalanche thunders down the steeps the call : 
Jehovah ! rustle soft the bright tree-tops, 
Whisper the silver brooks that murmuring fall. 
Translated by Dwight. Fredrike Brun. 

To illustrate further so as to discriminate the imitative from the 
assimilative point of view, take this poem on " Chamouni," which 
probably suggested to Coleridge his Hymn to Mont Blanc. The 
former method endeavors to imitate the crushing ice of an ava- 
lanche, in repeating " Jehovah God ; " and so in the third line the 
word " Jehovah " must be spoken in imitation of the breeze among 
the trees, or the brooks. 

But he who reads from assimilation adopts the point of view 
of a sympathetic spectator. He imaginatively creates and hears 
even more than the imitator, — the crushing ice and the thunder of 
the avalanche; but instead of imitating the external noise, he feels 
the meaning of the sounds, and expresses the reverent feeling 
which is awakened in his heart. There is a certain representation, 
1 See Coleridge's Hymn, p. 40. 



IMITATION AND ASSIMILATION. 223 

but it is an accident, and in the background. There is a difference, 
that is to say, between the first two and the second two lines of the 
last stanza. Sympathetic observation of the ice and the avalanche 
causes lines one and two to vibrate more or less with a sense of 
power, and the last two lines to express the softness of the breeze 
among the trees and the tenderness of the murmuring brook; but 
this is not imitation, — it is a sympathetic identification with the 
scene. The reader manifests his feeling, and does not represent 
external sounds. The effect is similar, but the process totally 
different, and the process in this case is everything. 

There are, however, differences in the effect. Imitation is 
mechanical, and is applied most frequently to individual words. 
Assimilation is suggestive, imaginative, reveals the character of the 
man, and differs with every one who reads the passage. It does 
not deal with single words, but gives atmosphere to the whole 
sentence. Moreover, the voice cannot represent the sound of the 
avalanche, and the effort is ridiculous. In the highest literature the 
great artist manifests what he feels of the scene in the simplest way. 

Looking at these two methods, therefore, it can be seen that 
assimilation causes expression to come from the mental identifica- 
tion of one's self with the scene. It manifests the effect of sym- 
pathetic observation. It is a spontaneous and natural mode, from 
within out, characteristic of all life. Imitation, on the other hand, 
is more or less an external thing. It acts from without, copy- 
ing objective sounds and facts. Its highest success depends upon 
vocal dexterity. Assimilation comes from within. It enters into 
participation with the heart of things. Imitation reproduces ex- 
ternal characteristics, assimilation expresses an identification of 
internal processes. It deals with a cause, with the heart. Imita- 
tion begins with effects, and ends by calling attention to the 
execution. The other makes expression an outgrowth as natural 
as the song of the bird or the blooming of the flower. The im- 
agination penetrates to the soul of things, and awakens a deep 
response from the human heart. Imitation is antagonistic to 
imagination; it centres in mechanical expertness. 

Note, again, the effect of each method upon the auditor. The 
one appeals to the mind, the other chiefly to the eye or the ear. One 



224 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

appeals to the creative instinct, the deeper feelings and sympathies 
of the soul; the other calls for admiration of skill. Imitation 
dulls the sensibilities to noble passion, and the auditor becomes 
a mere spectator of performance. One is dramatic, the other 
spectacular. 

The method by imitation is usually regarded as an essential 
element in dramatic art. Whatever is dramatic or histrionic is 
often considered as primarily imitative. But imitation belongs to 
farce, and the lowest forms of expression. Here is one acting the 
part of an old man. He places his legs near together and stiffens 
them; he cramps his voice; and tries to imitate a few of the 
accidents of age; but assimilation penetrates to the heart, and 
identifies the actor with the conception of the personality. The 
whole body, if trained to be responsive, co-operates naturally with 
the expression. Imitation aggregates ; it is always one-sided ; it 
only uses certain parts or agents of the body. Imitation can 
never produce the unity and spontaneity which are the universal 
qualities of nature. It is only by assimilation that one soul can 
identify itself with another, which is the fundamental element of 
the dramatic. A character portrayed by assimilation seems to live 
and move. Every part is consistent with every other part. It 
is not imitative patch-work, but the sympathetic manifestation of 
a personality. Thus imitation is not dramatic, because it can 
only give accidents and oddities, while the essence of the dramatic 
is the interpretation of character, the manifestation of the response 
in experience to ideas. 

There is no loss so great as the loss of originality. Every soul 
to be alive must act in its own way, in accordance with its own 
impressions, its own instincts. Vocal expression is the freest art, 
because it lies closest to nature. God has given the soul of man an 
inborn instinct which awakens and thrills him ; the artist looks into 
the face of nature and feels mysteries to which he gives voice. We 
are not to bow down to wood or stone, for He is the Life ; He is the 
vine, we the branches. 

In the lower forms of literature much imitative modulation is 
possible; but in Wordsworth's great "Ode on Immortality," 
Keats' " Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, " or Shelley's " Ode to the 






IMITATION AND ASSIMILATION. 225 

West Wind, " note how little imitation is found. There is much 
in " Midsummer's Night's Dream, " or the " Comedy of Errors, " 
but little in " Hamlet " and " Macbeth." Imitation cannot inter- 
pret great poetry; its use in delivery has often degraded great 
poems to the level of farce. 

The aim of all expression is to bring a soul into right relation- 
ship with truth. The highest thing one soul can do for another is 
to give it a point of view. Imitation establishes a superficial 
relationship, a mechanical, unsympathetic point of view. Imagi- 
nation and sympathetic insight suggest the right point of view in 
expressing the idea. The true reader appeals to the mind, not to 
sense, awakens thought, presents a new aspect, appeals to imagina- 
tion and to sympathy. His character lives. He does not please 
the fancy, but awakens imagination and passion. His art is not 
the product of a machine, not an aggregation of parts, but an organ- 
ism with a heart and soul. 

IDEAS OF IMITATION. 

Whenever anything looks like what it is not, the resemblance being 
so great as nearly to deceive, we feel a kind of pleasurable surprise, an 
agreeable excitement of mind, exactly the same in its nature as that 
which we receive from juggling. Whenever we perceive this in some- 
thing produced by art, that is to say, whenever the work is seen to 
resemble something which we know it is not, we receive what I call an 
idea of imitation. . . . Now two things are requisite to our complete 
and more pleasurable perception of this : first, that the resemblance be so 
perfect as to amount to a deception ; secondly, that there be some means 
of proving at the same moment that it is a deception. The most per- 
fect ideas and pleasures of imitation are, therefore, when one sense is 
contradicted by another, both bearing as positive evidence on the sub- 
ject as each is capable of alone ; as when the eye says a thing is round, 
and the finger says it is flat ; they are, therefore, never felt in so high a 
degree as in painting, where appearance of projection, roughness, hair, 
velvet, etc., are given with a smooth surface, or in wax-work, where the 
first evidence of the senses is perpetually contradicted by their exper- 
ience ; but the moment we come to marble, our definition checks us, 
for a marble figure does not look like what it is not : it looks like mar- 
ble, and like the form of a man, but it is marble, and it is the form of 
a man. It does not look like a man, which it is not, but like the form 
of a man, which it is. Form is form, whether in marble or in flesh — 

15 



226 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

not an imitation or resemblance of form, but real form. The chalk out- 
line of the bough of a tree on paper, is not an imitation ; it looks like 
chalk and paper — not like wood, and that which it suggests to the 
mind is not properly said to be like the form of a bough, it is the form of 
a bough. Now, then, we see the limits of an idea of imitation ; it 
extends only to the sensation of trickery and deception occasioned by a 
thing's intentionally seeming different from what it is ; and the degree 
of the pleasure depends on the degree of difference and the perfection of 
the resemblance, not on the nature of the thing resembled. . . . These 
ideas and pleasures are the most contemptible which can be received 
from art ; first, because it is necessary to their enjoyment that the mind 
should reject the impression and address of the thing represented, and 
fix itself only upon the reflection that it is not what it seems to be. All 
high or noble emotion or thought are thus rendered physically impossible, 
while the mind exults in what is very like a strictly sensual pleasure. . . . 

Ideas of imitation are contemptible in the second place, because not 
only do they preclude the spectator from enjoying inherent beauty in 
the subject, but they can only be received from mean and paltry subjects, 
because it is impossible to imitate anything really great. We can 
" paint a cat or a fiddle, so that they look as if we could take them up ; " 
but we cannot imitate the ocean, or the Alps. "We can imitate fruit, but 
not a tree; flowers, but not a pasture; cut-glass, but not the rainbow. 
All pictures in which deceptive powers of imitation are displayed are 
therefore either of contemptible subjects, or have the imitation shown 
in contemptible parts of them, bits of dress, jewels, furniture, etc. 

Thirdly, these ideas are contemptible, because no ideas of power are 

associated with them ; to the ignorant, imitation, indeed, seems difficult, 

and its success praiseworthy, but even they can by no possibility see 

more in the artist than they do in a juggler, who arrives at a strange end 

by means with which they are unacquainted. 

Buskin. 



When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 

The line, too, labors, and the words move slow ; 

Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, 

Flies o'er the unbending corn and skims along the main. 

Pope. 

Words are instruments of music : an ignorant man uses them for jar- 
gon ; but when a master touches them they have unexpected life and 
soul. Some words sound out like drums ; some breathe memories sweet 
as flutes; some call like a clarionet : some shout a charge like trumpets ; 
some are sweet as children's talk ; others rich as a mother's answering 
back. 



IMITATION^AND ASSIMILATION*. 227 

" Come, if you dare ! " our trumpets sound ; 
" Come, if you dare ! " the foes rebound ; 

" We come, we come ! " 
Says the double beat of the thund'ring drum : 

Now they charge on amain, 
Now they rally again. 
The gods from above the mad labour behold, 
And pity mankind that will perish for gold. 



Buz, quoth the blue fly, hum, quoth the bee ; 

Buz and hum they cry, and so do we, 

In his ear, in his nose, thus, do you see ? 

He ate the dormouse ; else it was he. Ben Jonson. 



DOVER BEACH. 

The sea is calm to-night ; the tide is full ; the moon lies fair upon the 
Straits ; on the French coast the light gleams, and is gone ; the cliffs of 
England stand, glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the 
window : sweet is the night-air ! only from the long line of spray where the 
ebb meets the moon-blanched sand, listen ! you hear the grating roar of 
pebbles which the wav^es suck back, and fling, at their return, up the high 
strand, begin and cease, and then again begin, with tremulous cadence slow, 
and bring the eternal note of sadness in. 

Sophocles long ago heard it on the iEgean, and it brought into his mind the 
turbid ebb and flow of human misery : we find also in the sound a thought, 
hearing it by this distant northern sea. . . . Matthew Arnold. 



THE KITCHEN CLOCK. 

Knitting is the maid o' the kitchen, Milly ; doing nothing sits the chore boy, 
Billy : " Seconds reckoned, seconds reckoned, every minute, sixty in it. Milly, 
Billy, Billy, Milly, tick-tock, tock-tick, nick-knock, knock-nick, knockety- 
nick, nockety-knock " — goes the kitchen clock. 

Closer to the fire is rosy Milly, every whit as close and cosy, Billy : " Time 's 
a-flying, worth your trying ; pretty Milly — kiss her, Billy ! Milly, Billy, 
Billy, Milly, tick-tock, tock-tick, now— now — quick — quick ! knockety- 
nick, nickety-knock " — goes the kitchen clock. 

Something 's happened, very red is Milly, Billy boy is looking very silly ; 
" Pretty misses, plenty kisses ; make it twenty, take a plenty. Billy, Milly, 
Milly, Billy, right — left, left — right, that's right, all right, knockety- 
nick, nickety-knock"— goes the kitchen clock. 

Weeks gone, still they 're sitting, Milly, Billy ; oh, the winter winds are 
wondrous chilly ! "Winter weather, close together ; wouldn't tarry, better 
marry, Milly, Billy, Billy, Milly, two — one, one — two, don't wait, 't won't 
do, knockety-knick, nickety-knock " — goes the kitchen clock. 



228 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

"Winters two have gone, and where is Milly ? Spring has come again, and 

where is Billy ? "Give me credit, for I did it ; treat me kindly, mind you 

wind me. Mister Billy, mistress Milly, my — 0, — my, by-by, by-by, 

nickety-knock, cradle rock " — goes the kitchen clock. 

Cheney. 



XXXII. MANIFESTATION AND REPRESENTATION. 

It has been shown that imitation belongs to the lowest forms of 
art, if, in fact, it be not characteristic of entire absence of proper 
artistic imagination and feeling. True artistic expression has been 
shown to be due to assimilation, — not to external manipulation, 
but to a sympathetic realization of imaginative situations which 
will create such an inner life as will cause a modulation of voice 
and body. 

There are, however, two modes of expressing assimilation which 
need to be carefully discriminated. They are not inconsistent with 
each other, may exist simultaneously, and are really two co-ordi- 
nate and necessary modes of expressing imaginative and sympa- 
thetic action ; but their processes are distinct, and they give rise to 
different artistic effects. They have been called in the " Province 
of Expression, " Representation and Manifestation. 

Manifestation is a revelation of man's own thought and feeling 
in his own way. It is subjective, personal, sympathetic, reveal- 
ing as directly as possible the character and feeling of the man him- 
self. It is direct and immediate, lyric rather than dramatic. 

Representation results from a sympathetic identification of the 
speaker with a situation intense enough to reproduce the process 
of thought and feeling in a definite, objective body. It results 
from such identification that leads to a conscious or unconscious 
presentation of objective actions or effects. It may reveal the 
thought and feeling in the form in which a distinct type of char- 
acter would give it. 

Manifestation is more subjective, representation is more objec- 
tive. Manifestation shows the man himself, the feelings that 
awaken in his breast; representation realizes the object so vividly 
that it desires to present its own form. Both of them are natural, 
and the result of genuine thinking and feeling, of sympathetic 
identification, or assimilation. 



MANIFESTATION AND REPRESENTATION. 229 

To illustrate these two modes of assimilation, take " The Cava- 
lier's Escape," by Thornbury. The poem refers to a simple 
situation. It is essentially a lyric, and in reading most of the 
lines, we manifest directly the simple emotions and responses to 
the ideas; but there are certain lines where we identify ourselves 
so fully with the Cavalier, and so vividly imagine the scene, that 
the words become the objective body of ideas, Though " pad, 
pad " in the first lines directly represent the light, quick step of 
his chestnut, they are not imitative. Their expression depends 
upon the reader's dramatic assimilation of the Cavalier's exultant 
admiration for his horse and of her movement. 

" Trample, trample, " " trap, trap, " express the heavy tread 
and labored movement of the horses of his enemies. His con- 
tempt inspires his imagination to conceive these definitely, and his 
voice to represent them. 

THE CAVALIER'S ESCAPE. 

Trample ! trample ! went the roan, trap ! trap ! went the gray ; 

But pad ! pad! pad ! like a thing that was mad, my chestnut broke away. 

It was just five miles from Salisbury town, and but one hour to day. 

Thud ! thud ! came on the heavy roan, rap ! rap ! the mettled gray ; 

But my chestnut mare was of blood so rare, that she showed them all the way. 

Spur on ! spur on ! I doffed my hat, and wished them all good-day. 

They splashed through miry rut and pool, splintered through fence and rail ; 
But chestnut Kate switched over the gate — I saw them droop and fail. 
To Salisbury town — but a mile of down, once over this brook and rail. 

Trap ! trap ! I heard their echoing hoofs past the walls of mossy stone ; 
The roan flew on at a staggering pace, but blood is better than bone. 
I patted old Kate, and gave her the spur, for I knew it was all my own. 

But trample ! trample ! came their steeds, and I saw their wolf's eyes burn ; 

I felt like a royal hart at bay, and made me ready to turn. 

I looked where highest grew the may, and deepest arched the fern. 

I flew at the first knave's sallow throat, — one blow, and he was down. 
The second rogue fired twice, and" missed ; I sliced the villain's crown. 
Clove through the rest, and flogged brave Kate, fast, fast to Salisbury town ! 

Pad ! pad ! they came on the level sward, thud ! thud ! upon the sand ; 
"With a gleam of swords, and a burning match, and a shaking of flag and hand : 
But one long bound, and I passed the gate, safe from the canting band. 

George Walter Thornbury. 



230 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Now, if a reader imagines the scene, conceives the Cavalier's 
character, and assimilates his feeling, the expression is true, nat- 
ural representation; but if he tries to embody mechanically in 
his voice these effects as effects, then he has imitation, not 
assimilation. 

This poem is peculiarly and necessarily representative; but 
mechanical imitation degrades it, because it carries the mind 
away from the central passion. Besides, only a few words are 
representative. The second time he refers to his own horse he 
has no representative words. This shows that representation is 
only occasional and accidental; that it is even then due to assimi- 
lation, not to imitation. 

Thus, representation is not identical with imitation. Imitation 
copies effects, and acts from without inward. Representation, on 
the contrary, is the objective embodiment of the subjective assim- 
ilation of a living process. It proceeds from within outward. It 
is a revelation, simple and natural, of genuine thought and feel- 
ing. It springs from a desire for objective form, to make the 
external body present the life within. It is due to tne fact that 
all expression is a revelation to sense of what is mystic and sub- 
jective. Each objective foim results from a process of identifica- 
tion, not from external imitation of accidents. 

There are thus really three modes of expression. The lowest 
mode is imitation, or an external mechanical manipulation by man 
of his voice and body, so as to convey an impression. The second 
is a representation due to dramatic realization of actions, and to 
vivid, imaginative conceptions. It is spontaneous and natural, 
and due wholly to sympathetic identification or assimilation. The 
third method is a manifestation of the feeling of the man. It is 
due to sympathy, and appeals to sympathy. It convoys an im- 
pression, not by representing the thought, or object, or action, 
but by revealing the feeling it awakens. 

So common is the confusion of imitation with representation, 
that it may be well to illustrate further the differences: — 

how our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices ! — 
Play on the soft lute of love, blow the loud trumpet of war, 
Sing with, the high sesquialtro, or, drawing its full diapason, 
Shake all the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops. 



MANIFESTATION AND REPRESENTATION. 231 

Take these four lines from Storey's poem on Language, given in 
all the books as the best illustration of what is called " imitative 
modulation." According to the method by imitation, the first line 
is simple narrative, and is given without any definite character ; 
then there follows imitation of " the lute, " of " the trumpet, " of 
the high stop of the organ, and last of the full diapason. Con- 
trast with this the method of assimilation. The first line gets its 
character from the general thought, from the feeling of admiration 
for power of expression. The comparison with the organ is not 
made literally. The mind holds the imaginative and central idea 
as the source of the feeling, and all the rest is but illustration. 
In the first line, therefore, the feeling of admiration gives the 
words definite character; the feeling is expressed which really 
causes all the following figures. Then when the lute is used as a 
means of expressing the power of words or of the voice to manifest 
tenderness, there is not the imitation of the lute, but the expres- 
sion of the tenderness itself of which the lute is a mere example. 
The symbol, in other words, is not followed mechanically, but the 
heart feels the central idea which caused the figure. Vocal expres- 
sion is a direct language. It is a subjective means of manifest- 
ing feeling.. To imitate the lute would make vocal expression 
mechanical, artificial, and superficial. 

The same is true of the trumpet of war. Realization and ad- 
miration of the power of voice or of words to express force, are 
felt, and the war trumpet is used as a suggestive illustration of 
this fact. An intelligent reader feels the point of view of the 
writer, and does not merely reproduce his figures by mechanical 
imitation, but goes through the imaginative process that chose the 
figures and expresses the feeling that rises in response to ideas. 

Assimilation thus acts from within outward ; and while it some- 
times results in an objective representation, such representation is 
a direct revelation of feeling, and is not a mechanical process. 
Thus representation implies subjective assimilation and life as its 
cause. It is objective form resulting from within outward, not 
from an external imitation of accidents. 

Is the dramatic rendering of a character by the process of 
imitation or the process of representation? Low farce, or mere 



_ 



232 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

caricature, may proceed by imitation, but any noble form of 
dramatic expression must proceed by sympathetic representation. 

Booth and Salvini never changed their voices so that they were 
not recognized. Their art was suggestive. It is only a mechan- 
ical elocutionist or manipulator of his voice who tries to change 
it so that it will not be recognized. In the highest tragedy, there 
is representation but little imitation. 

In the impersonation of Barbara Frietchie in Whittier's poem, 
imitation or the mechanical method of dramatic representation 
says "she is ninety years old; such a person would have a very 
broken voice and trembling limbs." Hence the reader gives the 
words she is supposed to speak, with a mechanical imitation of a 
quivering voice and with shaking hands. But this is foreign to 
the spirit of the poem. We should be far more concerned with the 
emotion of patriotism and courage that dominated her than with 
her age. The suggestion of great age is secondary and accidental, 
but her patriotism, her courage are primary and fundamental to 
the poem; they are its theme. 

True dramatic art is the revelation of the heart and motive, not 
an imitation of mere accidents; it is the subjective assimilation of 
another's character; it feels another's point of view. Imitation 
is its greatest counterfeit and enemy. 

BARBARA FRIETCHIE. 

"Up from the meadows rich with corn, clear in the cool September morn, 
the clustered spires of Frederick stand green-walled by the hills of Maryland. 
Round about them orchards sweep, apple and peach tree fruited deep, fair as 
the garden of the Lord to the eyes of the famished rebel horde, on that pleas- 
ant morn of the early fall. when Lee marched over the mountain- wall, — over 
the mountain winding down, horse and foot, into Frederick town. 

Forty flags with their silver stars, forty flags with their crimson bars, 
flapped in- the morning wind : the sun of noon looked down, and saw not 
one. Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, bowed with her fourscore years 
and ten ; bravest of all in Frederick town, she took up the flag the men 
hauled down ; in her attic window the staff she set, to show that one heart 
was loyal yet. 

Up the street came the rebel tread, Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. 
Under his slouched hat left and right he glanced : the old flag met his sight. 
"Halt!" — the dust-brown ranks stood fast. "Fire!" — out blazed the 
rifle-blast. It shivered the window, pane and sash ; it rent the banner with 



MANIFESTATION AND REPRESENTATION. 



233 



seam and gash. Quick, as it fell, from its broken staff dame Barbara snatched 

the silken scarf. She leaned far out on the window-sill and shook it forth 

with a royal will. "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your 

country's flag," she said. A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, over the face 

of the leader came ; the nobler nature within him stirred to life at that 

woman's deed and word. " Who touches a hair of yon gray head dies like a 

dog ! March on ! " he said. 

All day long through Frederick street sounded the tread of marching feet ; 

all day long that free flag tost over the heads of the rebel host.. Ever its 

torn folds rose and fell on the loyal winds that loved it well ; and through 

the hill-gaps sunset light shone over it with a warm good-night. Barbara 

Frietchie's work is o'er, and the Rebel rides on his raids no more. Honor to 

her ! and let a tear fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. Over Barbara 

Frietchie's grave, flag of Freedom and Union, wave ! peace and order and 

beauty draw round thy symbol of light and law ; and ever the stars above 

look down on thy stars below in Frederick town ! 

WhiUier. 



HOTSPUR'S DEFENCE. 

My liege, I did deny no prisoners, 
But, I remember, when the fight was done, 
When I was dry with rage, and extreme toil, 
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, 
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd, 
Fresh as a bridegroom ; and his chin new reap'd, 
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home ; 
He was perfumed like a milliner ; 
And 'twixt his finger and thumb he held 
A pouncet-box which ever and anon 
He gave his nose, and took 't away again ; — 
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there, 
Took it in snuff ; — and still he smil'd and talk'd ; 
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, 
He called them — untaught knaves, unmannerly, 
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse 
Betwixt the wind and his nobility. 
With many holyday and lady terms 
He question'd me ; among the rest demanded 
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf. 
I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold, 
To be so pester'd with a popinjay, 
Out of my grief and my impatience, 
Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what ; 
He should, or he should not ; — for he made me mad 



234 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, 
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman, 
Of guns, and drums, and wounds (God save the mark !), 
And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth 
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise ; 
And that it was great pity, so it was, 
That villanous saltpetre should be digg'd 
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 
"Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed 
So cowardly ; and but for these vile guns, 
He would himself have been a soldier. 
This bald, disjointed chat of his, my lord, 
I answer' d indirectly, as I said ; 
And I beseech you, let not his report 
Come current for an accusation, 
Betwixt my love and your high majesty. 
Henry TV. Part I. Shakespeare. 



XXXIII. ELEMENTS OF DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 

The word " dramatic" comes from a Greek word meaning to act. 
Hence, whatever is dramatic refers in some sense to action. 
Action implies a motive or a cause, and a conscious result or effect. 
Dramatic action as usually understood refers to the interpretation 
of character by the manifestation of human feelings, motives, and 
aims. It implies that the writer, reader, or speaker is an active 
participant, not one sitting at a distance reflecting and moralizing 
over facts or events. The word " dramatic, " directly or indirectly, 
immediately or figuratively, has some reference to the revelation of 
the life and movement of passion and character through the voice 
and body. 

Action is the highest and most direct revelation of character, 
and dramatic action is the means adopted by which one human 
being interprets the character of another, or manifests the character 
imaginatively in some specific situation. It is on account of the 
intimacy of dramatic action with character, its great power of 
interpretation, that the drama, as an art, has been most potent for 
good or evil in all ages. 

The term " dramatic, " however, is not merely applied to the ex- 
pression of character ; it applies also to the expression of ideas and 



. 



ELEMENTS OF DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 235 

feelings. The word " dramatic " is broader than the word " drama." 
Drama signifies a form of literature which deals with the dramatic, 
but anything is dramatic that reveals the relation of experience 
to thought, or gives ideas or events in such a way as to move 
or act as in nature. Hence, the term " dramatic " is often applied 
to the expression of simple phases of thought and exper- 
ience. Any phase is given dramatically when it is given with a 
distinct character caused by definite feeling of a specific situation. 
Even an idea or thought, when embodied in a definite -situation so 
as to cause definite emotion, or shown as the peculiar product of a 
definite character, is dramatic. Thus Thucydides, it has been said, 
was dramatic because he " presented facts or events themselves, and 
not reflections upon them." He gave events in such a relation to 
each other that they interpreted themselves. 

So much for the word " dramatic." What is meant by the word 
"instinct"? Instinct has been called "unconscious reason." It 
refers to a spontaneous action of the mind ; hence dramatic instinct 
means the spontaneous realization of ideas in living relations, and 
of the motive and manifestations of character. It is innate in the 
human heart, — in some form common to every nation and indi- 
vidual. It is the little child's first means of getting outside itself. 

There are usually considered to be two elements in dramatic 
instinct, — imagination and sympathy. Imagination gives insight 
into another's point of view, creates situations, penetrates to the aim 
and motive-springs of character, while sympathy enables us to iden- 
tify ourselves with these. 

The nature of dramatic instinct will be seen more clearly from 
illustrations than from abstract explanations. Take, for example, 
the character of Shylock. A reader may analyze his character; he 
may decide upon his age, he may deliberately bend his back and 
assume an artificial throaty voice ; but such conscious acts have 
nothing whatever to do with dramatic instinct. True dramatic 
instinct penetrates to the heart of the Jew, sees his point of view, 
feels his hate, and realizes something of .the results of ages of 
persecution, of which Shylock is the outcome. There are changes 
of voice, of melody, of body, of walk, but there is no patchwork. 
The very texture of the muscles of the body are modulated; the 



236 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

personality of the speaker, in short, has entered into an instinctive 
assimilation of the character. The isolated execution of specific 
external acts is most antagonistic to the true spirit of dramatic 
instinct. 

BASSANIO AND SHYLOCK. 

ShylocTc. Three thousand ducats, — well. 

Bassanio. Ay, sir, for three months. 

Shy. For three months, — well. 

Bass. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall he hound. 

Shy. Antonio shall be hound, — well. 

Bass. May you stead me ? Will you pleasure me ? Shall I know your 
answer ? 

Shy. Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound. 

Bass. Your answer to that. 

Shy. Antouio is a good man. 

Bass. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary ? 

Shy. Ho ! no, no, no, no ; — my meaning, in saying he is a good man, is to 
have you understand me that he is sufficient. Yet his means are in supposi- 
tion ; he jhath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies ; I un- 
derstand moreover upon the Eialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for 
England; and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad. But ships are 
but boards, sailors but men ; there be land-rats and water-rats, land-thieves 
and water-thieves, — I mean, pirates : and then there is the peril of waters, 
winds, rocks. The man is, notwithstanding, sufficient. Three thousand 
ducats ; — I think I may take his bond. 

Bass. Be assured you may. 

Shy. I will be assured I may ; and, that I may be assured, I will bethink me. 
May I speak with Antonio ? 

Bass. If it please you to dine with us. 

Shy. Yes, to smell pork ; to eat of the habitation which your prophet the 
Nazarite conjured the Devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk 
with you, walk with you and so following ; but I will not eat with you, drink 
with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto ? — Who is he comes 
here ? [Enter Antonio. 

Bass. This is Signior Antonio. 

Shy. [Aside.] How like a fawning publican he looks ! 
I hate him for he is a Christian ; 
But more, for that in low simplicity 
He lends out money gratis, and brings down 
The rate of usance here with us in Venice. 
If I can catch him once upon the hip, 
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. 
He hates our sacred nation; and he rails, 



ELEMENTS OF DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 237 

Even there where merchants most do congregate, 

On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, 

"Which he calls interest : Cursed be my tribe, 

If I forgive him ! 
Bass. Shylock, do you hear ? 
Shy. I am debating of my present store ; 

And, by the near guess of my memory, I cannot instantly raise up 
the gross 

Of full three thousand ducats : What of that ? 

Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe, 

Will furnish me. But, soft ; how many months 

Do you desire ? — [To Ant.] Rest you fair, good Signior ; 

Your worship was the last man in our mouths. 
Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare. 

Another means of realizing the nature of dramatic instinct and 
of developing its power is to take the most familiar word, such as 
" Yes" or " No, " and give it with a dozen different imaginative 
situations, or characters. It may be given with reluctance, with 
command, with timidity, with fear, with tenderness, with anger. 
It may also be given as spoken under various circumstances by 
different characters. It may be given by a boy confessing his 
fault, or by the joyful eager response when asked if he wishes to 
go fishing. 

Well. Yes. No. What. Where. Why. There. Indeed. I saw 
him. There it is. The sun went down. He is gone. He fell. It 
sank. He rose.' I was there. Come in. Come here. Sit down. 
There is the door. Here it is. He sat down. 

A short sentence or phrase may also be given with specific 
situations ; for example, the words, " He fell, " can be spoken with 
a ludicrous situation in mind, some one falling on the ice or from 
a bicycle ; it may refer to a little child who is hurt, or who is not 
hurt ; it may be spoken so as to show anxiety ; it may refer to the 
downfall of some great man ; it may be used literally or figuratively. 
The possible situations and characters are practically innumerable, 
and in each case where the situation is definitely conceived by the 
imagination and the assimilative instinct, and causes genuine identi- 
fication and feeling, the expression will have a distinct character. 

Your father is coming across the square. I saw your brother on the 
street to-day. Your father was on the train this morning. Your 



238 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. . 

mother came from Chicago last night. Your room-mate took the prize 
yesterday. I shall go down the bay by boat this evening. 

It may further aid in realizing what is dramatic to take a sen- 
tence, such as " I saw your father in the street," change the logica 
relation of the thought and ideas from simple and vague informa- 
tion to the assertion of the fact that you saw him, and state the 
fact in opposition to some one else's father, or where you saw 
him in opposition to some other place, and you will find that such 
antitheses and logical relations of ideas are shown by inflection 
and other modes of emphasis. Take the same sentence, and speak 
it with different dramatic situations, such as running in with joy- 
ful surprise, or with disturbed surprise, or sorrow, or triumph, or 
to give warning, and you will find that such situations cause not 
only inflections, but tone-color and modulations of the texture of 
the voice with pantomine. These are the special means that reveal 
imaginative situations, or the dramatic identification of the reader 
or speaker with scenes, events, or characters. 

According to Professor A. W. Ward, possibly the highest Eng- 
lish-speaking authority on the subject of the drama, " The art of 
acting is an indispensable adjunct of the dramatic arts." The 
dramatic and the histrionic arts are to him " really inseparable 
from one another. Properly speaking, no drama is such until it 
is acted." Accordingly, in rendering dramatic passages, not only 
the vocal expression, but also the face and body, are modulated 
and dominated by the successive situations; for pantomimic ex- 
pression is more dramatic than even vocal expression. Hence, 
the expressive modulation of the body is called dramatic action. 
The methodic or logical instinct reveals itself more by inflectional 
modulations. The imaginative or creative instinct manifests its 
conceptions of ideal relations and situations by means of tone-color 
and texture, while dramatic instinct reveals itself more by action. 
Vocal and pantomimic expression, however, in all their forms are 
always intertwined. Words and action. can be isolated even more 
than vocal expression. Vocal expression, in some of its subtlest 
forms, depends upon the modulation of the body; but in true 
expression they are rarely found separate irom each other. They 
form a unity. Whenever a man is natural, he uses them all. 



ELEMENTS OF DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 239 

By dramatic action, however, is not meant gesticulation. True 
expressive actions in nature are very subtle. The twinkle of the 
eye, the expansion of the chest, the elevation of the whole body, 
the lifting of the head, or the expansion of the hand, — these 
are the natural expression of dramatic instinct. The extravagant 
gesticulation which has come from perverted study, that has been 
in vogue for a hundred years in English elocution, is utterly for- 
eign to all imaginative conception or dramatic instinct and feeling. 

The natural languages taken together are the true means of 
revealing dramatic assimilation. In fact, some of the most subtle 
dramatic elements in any poem can be revealed only by these lan- 
guages. For example, in the " Merchant of Venice, " one of the 
most important points in the play is where old Shylock conceives 
his scheme about the pound of flesh. Did it come upon him 
suddenly or gradually ? At what point was it first suggested to 
his mind? Shakespeare gives no hint of this in Shylock's words, 
nor can he do so. It must come from the histrionic instinct of 
the actor. He must judge of this by the whole situation; in fact, 
it must be revealed by Shylock when Antonio or Bassanio is 
speaking, and can only be revealed by dramatic action. Was it 
conceived by old Shylock during the contemptuous speech made 
by Antonio ? Again, in " Hamlet, " at what point in the play did 
he suspect that his uncle had killed his father ? Did he suspect 
it before the ghost told him ? "Oh, my prophetic soul, my 
uncle ! " shows that it was earlier. How and where should this 
prophetic action of Hamlet's mind be revealed by the artist who 
renders the part? For my part, I think it is indicated in the 
previous scene, where Horatio, Bernardo, and Marcellus came to 
tell him of the ghost. I think it appeared at one point in the 
words " Very like," which to my mind should be given subjectively 
and aside, with a deep feeling of premonition. Whether it is right 
or not, the true interpretation of a play demands such intima- 
tions,— vaguely, it may be, but still natural and dramatic sug- 
gestions of the spirit of thoughts and feelings which are too subtle 
to be put into words. Tones and actions manifest the deepest and 
subtlest feelings and intuitions, and hence form the soul of dra- 
matic expression. 



240 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

The elements of dramatic instinct are best found and developed 
apart from stage representation. Students should arrange and 
dramatize scenes from stories, and give them as dialogues, but 
nearly always without " make-up " or scenery. These must only 
be used after the dramatic intuitions have been awakened, or an 
amateurish trust in mere " business " is acquired. Besides, some 
of the most dramatic passages in literature are incapable of stage 
representation. How dramatic is the following passage, and what 
a fine dialogue students can arrange from it, — leaving the coach 
and the situation wholly to the imagination; but to represent it 
on the stage, all reference as to the coach would have to be 
omitted. 

PETER POUNCE AND THE PARSON. 

Peter Pounce, being desirous of having some one to whom he might 
communicate his grandeur, told the parson he would convey him home 
in his chariot. This favor was, by Adams, with many bows and ac- 
knowledgments, accepted, though he afterward said he ascended the 
chariot rather that he might not offend than from any desire of riding 
in it, for that in his heart he preferred the pedestrian even to the vehic- 
ular expedition. The chariot had not proceeded far, before Mr. Adams 
observed it was a very fine day. " Ay, and a very fine country, too," 
answered Pounce. 

"I should think so more," returned Adams, "if I had not lately 
travelled over the Downs, which I take to exceed this, and all other 
prospects in the universe." " A fig for prospects," answered Pounce; 
" one acre here is worth ten there : for my part, I have no delight in 
the prospect of any land but my own." 

" Then," said Adams, " you can indulge yourself in many fine pros- 
pects of that kind." " I thank God I have a little," replied the other, 
" with which I am content, and envy no man. I have a little, Mr. 
Adams, with which I do as much good as I can." 

Adams answered " that riches, without charity, were nothing worth ; 
for that they were a blessing only to him who made them a blessing to 
others." "You and I," said Peter, "have different notions of charity. 
I own, as it is generally used, I do not like the word, nor do I think it 
becomes one of us gentlemen; it is a mean, parson-like quality ; though 
I would not infer that many parsons have it neither." 

""Sir," said Adams, " my definition of charity is, a generous disposi- 
tion to relieve the distressed." " There is something in that definition," 



ELEMENTS OF DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 241 

answered Peter, " which I like well enough ; it is, as you say, a disposi- 
tion — and does not so much consist in the act as in the disposition to 
do it : but, alas ! Mr. Adams, who are meant by the distressed ? believe 
me, the distresses of mankind are mostly imaginary, and it would be 
rather folly than goodness to relieve them." 

" Sure, sir," replied Adams, " hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, 
and other distresses which attend the poor, can never be said to be im- 
aginary evils." " How can any man complain of hunger," said Pounce, 
" in a country where such excellent salads are to be gathered in almost 
every field ? — or of thirst, where every stream and river produce such 
delicious potations ? — and as for cold and nakedness, they are evils in- 
troduced by luxury and custom. A man naturally wants clothes no 
more than a horse or any other animal ; and there are whole nations 
who go without them. But these are things, perhaps, which you, who 
do not know the world — " 

" You will pardon me, sir," returned Adams ; " I have read of the 
Gymnosophists." "A plague of your Jehosophats," cried Peter ; "the 
greatest fault in our constitution is the provision made for the poor, ex- 
cept that perhaps made for some others. Sir, I have not an estate which 
doth not contribute almost as much again to the poor as to the land- 
tax ; and I do assure you I expect myself to come to the parish in the 
end." 

To which Adams giving a dissenting smile, Peter thus proceeded : 
" I fancy, Mr. Adams, you are one of those who imagine I am a lump of 
money ; for there are many who I fancy believe that not only my pock- 
ets, but my whole clothes are lined with bank bills ; but, I assure you, 
you are all mistaken : I am not the man the world esteems me. If I 
can hold my head above water, it is all I can. I have injured myself -by 
purchasing ; I have been too liberal of my money. Indeed, I fear my 
heir will find my affairs in a worse situation than they are reputed to be. 
Ah ! he will have reason to wish I had loved money more and land less. 
Pray, my good neighbor, where should I have that quantity of money 
the world is so liberal to bestow on me ? Where could I possibly, with- 
out I had stole it, acquire such a treasure 1 " 

" Why, truly," said Adams, " I have been always of your opinion ; I 
have wondered, as well as yourself, with what confidence they could 
report such things of you, which have to me appeared as mere impossi- 
bilities ; for you know, sir, and I have often heard you say it, that your 
wealth is of your own acquisition ; and can it be credible that in your 
short time you should have amassed such a heap of treasure as these 
people will have you are worth 1 Indeed, had you inherited an estate 

16 



242 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

like Sir Thomas Booby, which had descended in your family through 
many generations, they might have had a color for their assertions." 
" Why, what do they say I am worth''" cries Peter, with a malicious 
sneer. 

" Sir," answered Adams, "I have heard some aver you are not worth 
less than twenty thousand pounds." At which Peter frowned. " Nay, 
sir," said Adams, " you ask me only the opinion of others ; for my own 
part, I have always denied it, nor did I ever believe you could possibly 
be worth half that sum." 

" However, Mr. Adams," said he, squeezing him by the hand, " I 
would not sell them all I am worth for double that sum ; and as to what 
you believe, or they believe, I care not a fig. I am not poor, because 
you think me so, nor because you attempt to undervalue me in the 
country. I know the envy of mankind very well ; but I thank heaven 
I am above them. It is true, my wealth is of my own acquisition. I 
have not an estate like Sir Thomas Booby, that hath descended in my 
family through many generations; but I know heirs of such estates, 
who are forced to travel about the country, like some people in torn 
cassocks, and might be glad to accept of a pitiful curacy, for what I 
know ; yes, sir, as shabby fellows as yourself, whom no man of my 
figure, without that vice of good-nature about him, would suffer to ride 
in a chariot with him." 

" Sir," said Adams, " I value not your chariot of a rush ; and if I had 
known you had intended to affront me, I would have walked to the 
world's end on foot, ere I would have accepted a place in it. However, 
sir, I will soon rid you of that inconvenience ! " And so saying, he 
opened the chariot door, without calling to the coachman, and leaped 
out into the highway, forgetting to take his hat along with him; which, 
however, Mr. Pounce threw after him with great violence. 

Henry Fielding. 

CONFESSIONS. 
What is the buzzing in my ears ? " now that I come to die, 
Do I view the world as a vale of tears ? " ah, reverend sir, not 1 ! 
What I viewed there once, what I view again where the physic bottles stand 
On the table's edge, — is a superb lane, with a wall to my bedside hand. 
That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, from a house you could descry 
O'er the garden wall : is the curtain blue or green to a healthy eye ? 
To mine it serves for the old June weather blue above lane and wall ; 
And that farthest bottle labelled " Ether" is the" house o'ertopping all. 
At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, there watched for me one June, 
A girl : I know, sir, it 's improper, my poor mind is out of tune. 



POINT OF VIEW. 243 

Only there was a way . . . you crept close by the side, to dodge 

Eyes in the house, two eyes except : they styled their house "The Lodge." 

What right had a lounger up their lane ? but, by creeping very close, 

With the good wall's help, — their eyes might strain and stretch themselves 

to Oes, 

Yet never catch her and me together, as she left the attic, there, 

By the rim of the bottle labelled " Ether," and stole from stair to stair, 

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, we loved, sir — used to meet : 

How sad and bad and mad it was — but then, how it was sweet ! 

Browning. 



XXXIV. POINT OF VIEW. 

Whatever is seen by man is perceived from some one point of 
view. Power to change points of view, to appreciate or to under- 
stand the attitude of other men, lies at the foundation of all appre- 
ciation of art, or even of truth. An isolated fact has little 
significance. It is the union of facts, the sympathetic relation 
of facts to the mind and heart, that gives that co-ordination of the 
objective with the subjective necessary to the realization of truth. 

A fruitful source of narrowness in character and of monotony 
and artificiality in expression is one-sidedness or limitation of 
point of view. To understand the simplest object requires that 
it shall be seen from different directions and in varied relations. 
All genuineness or truthfulness of feeling depends upon point of 
view, for it is chiefly this that stimulates any sympathetic 
response. 

Now Harry he had long suspected this trespass of old Goody Blake, and 
vowed that she should be detected, and he on her would vengeance take. 
And oft from his warm fire he 'd go, and to the fields his road would take, 
and there, at night, in frost and snow, he watched to seize old Goody Blake. 
And once behind a rick of barley, thus looking out did Harry stand ; the 
moon was full and shining clearly, and crisp with frost the stubble land. 
He hears a noise — he 's all awake ; again ! — on tiptoe down the hill he softly 
creeps. 'T is Goody Blake ! she 's at the hedge of Harry Gill. Right glad 
was he when he beheld her ; stick after stick did Goody pull : he stood 
behind a bush of elder, till she had filled her apron full. When with her 
load she turned about, the by-road back again to take, he started forward 
with a shout, and sprang upon poor Goody Blake. 

And fiercely by the arm he took her, and by the arm he held her fast, and 
fiercely by the arm he shook her, and cried, " I 've caught you then at last ! " 



244 



ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 



Then Goody, who had nothing said, her bundle from her lap let fall; and 
kneeling on the sticks, she prayed to God that is the judge of all. She 
prayed, her withered hand uprearing, while Harry held her by the arm, 
"God! who art never out of hearing, may he never more be warm !" 
The cold, cold moon above her head, thus on her knees did Goody pray : 
young Harry heard what she had said, and icy cold he turned away. 

Point of view can be better illustrated than denned. In the 
preceding passage what emotion or expression should be given to 
the clauses referring to the moon and the frost 1 Our own point of 
view might lead to admiration of them, but they cause an antagonis- 
tic exultation in Harry, since the one will enable him to see, and 
the other to hear, Goody Blake. In reading the lines, however, we 
might express our regret for his revengeful spirit. Again, we may 
identify ourselves with him as " he hears a noise, " and its repetition, 
with his stealthy approach, his discovery that it is Goody ; or we 
may look on and express our contempt for his action ; or again we 
may identify ourselves with him till her name is spoken, then 
change our point of view and express " She is at the hedge " with 
regret. So the next clause " right glad," etc., may be given with 
his cruel delight, or with our feeling against him; or we can give 
this clause with his feeling, and express our own in the next. In 
the sentence " When with her load " etc., we may start with regret 
and pity for her, then give his point of view, and represent his 
spirit and feeling with underlying antagonism to him, then after 
the word " and " we may return to our own feeling of pity for her. 

These possible ways of rendering the passage illustrate the fact 
that consciously, or unconsciously, the reader adopts some point of 
view for each phrase, and so determines his feeling and expression. 
It is a definite point of view, which makes expression dramatic. 
The ability to vary the point of view, and the instinct to conceive 
the right one in any specific case, is a most important element of 
all forms of vocal expression. The instinct that conceives a point 
of view is one of the most important in the human mind. It is 
as important for success in life as for attainment in reading and 
speaking. Each must be able to see things as others see them, 
or he cannot come into contact with his race or be able to mould 
them in any Way. A lack of power to vary points of view or to 



POINT OF VIEW. 245 

appreciate that of other ages, other nations, other beliefs, or 
other feelings than our own is the characteristic of a narrow and 
bigoted soul. 

Point of view is an important element in the effectiveness of 
any art. Ordinary writing can give us thought, but it cannot give 
point of view. It takes poetry, the drama, or the novel to do 
this. Every man can look at nature, but a painting can show 
how superficial has been his observation, and give a point of view 
by which he is brought face to face with the real beauty of nature. 
Every great art work gives men a new point of view. Art lifts 
us into sympathy with each other, to a plane from which we can 
see with each other's eyes. 

The proper apprehension of truth depends upon the ability to 
appreciate various points of view. As a case in court is weak 
where there is but one witness; as the life of Christ would have 
been more effectively assailed had there been but one gospel; as 
the Master's words would have been local and temporary without 
the parable; as many witnesses are required to establish a truth, 
— so the individual soul must ever be led to see with other eyes, 
to understand really the meaning of the smallest event. A man 
who never studies art, never reads poetry or fiction, never hears 
any music, public reading, or dramatic representation, loses his 
grasp over his fellow-men. He has overlooked one of the funda- 
mental necessities of human nature. 

There is no place where point of view has such importance as 
in vocal expression. Here is found the very soul of all dramatic 
expression, of all true oratory, and of all effective interpretation, 
of literature through the voice. Vocal expression, more than 
any other form of art, can give varieties of points of view. It can 
reveal and interpret a greater number of mental and emotional 
attitudes toward truth than painting or poetry. 

One of the sublimest illustrations of point of view is the para- 
ble misnamed "The Prodigal Son." The aim of this parable is 
to give an individual soul a right point of view from which to 
appreciate the character of God, and his relation to men, as well as 
man's two leading modes of going astray, and of losing sympathy 
with the Father of all. To give this truth to mankind even Christ 



246 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

was compelled to employ art, for art is a necessity of human nature. 
Without it there can be no adequate appreciation of truth. The 
parable was the art of our Master. " Because of the hardness of 
the heart, " parables were given so as to embody a truth for all 
ages, which would not be explicit but implicit, which would " Do 
the thing that breeds the thought," or evoke the divine spirit in 
man to realize what could not be given by explanation, but only 
by implication. 

Without entering into analysis, let us take a few subordinate 
clauses as illustrations of the necessity of right point of view to 
true vocal expression, and of the power of vocal expression to 
interpret points of view. Take the answer of the servant to the 
elder brother ; what was the servant's feeling 1 Verbal exegesis 
will not help us. The exegesis must be dramatic. What was his 
point of view ? To give it as neutral is to violate the fundamental 
principle of human nature, and to introduce a discord into the 
story. From the general nature of servants, there would be joy 
at the killing of the calf, and the giving of this speech joyously 
emphasizes the cold bearing of the elder brother by contrast. He 
is thus isolated, and his selfishness made salient. The point of 
view, therefore, of the servant must be in sympathy with the 
younger brother, and his words must be given with joy. 

As another illustration, take the clause, " He was angry." The 
typical and self-styled dramatic reader gives all such subordinate 
clauses as merely explanatory and narrative. It is only when he 
finds a quotation that he gives it any feeling or character. But 
there are subordinate clauses which give the different points of 
view of the narrator, and which are, if possible, more dramatic 
than any direct quotation. This clause will be most naturally 
given from the point of view of the reader himself, who stands in 
the place of a sympathetic spectator. He may be astonished, or 
disappointed, or indignant. The feeling of astonishment coloring 
these words possibly best interprets the spirit of the parable. 
The next clause, " and would not go in, " may be given with re- 
gret or noble indignation ; the next, with admiration for the noble 
tenderness and love of the father. When we do finally come to 
the direct words of the elder brother, the change in point of view 



POINT OF VIEW. 247 

to the representation of his feeling makes still more emphatic his 
character and place in the parable. 

PARABLE OF THE FATHER. 

A certain man had two sons : and the younger of them said to his 
father, Father, give me the portion of thy substance that falleth to me. 
And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the 
younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a -far coun- 
try ; and there he wasted his substance with riotous living. And when 
he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that country ; and he 
began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to one of the 
citizens of that country ; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 
And he would fain have been filled with the husks that the swine did 
eat : and no man gave unto him. But when he came to himself he said, 
How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to 
spare, and I perish here with hunger ! I will arise and go to my father, 
and I will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in 
thy sight : I am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one 
of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But while 
he was yet afar off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, 
and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto 
him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight : I am no 
more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, 
Bring forth quickly the best robe, and put it on him ; and put a ring on 
his hand, and shoes on his feet : and bring the fatted calf, and kill it, 
and let us eat, and make merry : for this my son was dead, and is alive 
■again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. 

Now his elder son was in the field : and as he came and drew nigh 
to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called to him one 
of the servants, and enquired what these things might be. And he said 
unto him, Thy brother is come ; and thy father hath killed the fatted 
calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. But he was angry 
and would not go in; and his father came out and entreated him. But 
he answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve 
thee, and I never transgressed a commandment of thine: and yet thou 
never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends : but 
when this thy son came, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, 
thou killedst for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou 
art ever -with me, and all that is mine is thine. But it was meet to 
make merry and be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and is alive 
again ; and was lost, and is found. 



248 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

. . . Once in the old Colonial days, 
Two hundred years ago and more, 
A boat sail'd down through the winding ways 

Of Hampton Eiver to that low shore, 
Full of a goodly company 
Sailing out on the summer sea, 
Veering to catch the land-breeze light, 
With the Boar to left and the Hocks to right. 

In Hampton meadows, where mowers laid 

Their scythes to the swaths of salted grass, 
" Ah, well-a-day ! our hay must be made ! " 

A young man sigh'd who saw them pass. 
Loud laugh'd his fellows to see him stand 
Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, 
Hearing a voice in a far-off song, 
Watching a white hand beckoning long. 

" Fie on the witch ! " cried a merry girl, 

As they rounded the point where Goody Cole 

Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, 
A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. 

" Oho ! " she mutter'd, "ye 're brave to-day ! 

But I hear the little waves laugh and say, 

' The broth will be cold that waits at home ; 

For it 's one to go, but another to come ! ' " 

" She 's cursed," said the skipper ; " speak her fair : 

I 'm scary always to see her shake 
Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, 

And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a snake." 
But merrily still, with laugh and shout, 
From Hampton Eiver the boat sail'd out, 
Till the huts and the flakes on the Star seem'd nigh, 
And they lost the scent of the pines of Eye. 

They dropp'd their lines in the lazy tide, 
Drawing up haddock and mottled cod ; 
They saw not the shadow that walk'd beside, 
They heard not the feet with silence shod : 
But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, 
Shot by the lightnings through and through ; 
And muffled growls, like the growl of a beast, 
Ean along the sky from west to east. 



POINT OF VIEW. 249 

Then the skipper look'd from the darkening sea 

Up to the dimra'd and wading Sun ; 
But he spake'like a brave man cheerily, 

" Yet there is time for our homeward run." 
Veering and tacking, they backward wore ; 
And, just as a breath from the woods ashore 
Blew out to whisper of danger past, 
The wrath of the storm came down at last ! 

The skipper haul'd at the heavy sail : 

" God be our help," he only cried, 
As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail, 

Smote the boat on its starboard side. 
The shoalsmen look'd, but saw alone 
Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, 
Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare, 
The strife and torment of sea and air. 

Goody Cole look'd out from her door : 
The Isles of Shoals were drown'd and gone, 

Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar 
Toss the foam from tusks of stone. 

She clasp' d her hands with a grip of pain, 

The tear on her cheek was not of rain : 

" They are lost," she mutter'd, " boat and crew ? 

Lord, forgive me ! my words were true ! " 

Suddenly seaward swept the squall ; 

The low Sun smote through cloudy rack ; 
The shoals stood clear in the light, and all 

The trend of the coast lay hard and black : 
But, far and wide as eye could reach, 
No life was seen upon wave or beach ; 
The boat that went out at morning never 
Sail'd back again into Hampton River. 
From Rivermouth Rocks. Whittier. 

TO A SKYLARK. 

Ethereal minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky ! 
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound ? 
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye 
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground ? — 
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 
Those quivering wings composed, that music still ! 



^ 



250 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

To the last point of vision, and beyond, 

Mount, daring warbler ! that love-prompted strain 

(Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) 

Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain : 

Yet migbt'st thou seem, proud privilege ! to sing 

All independent of the leafy spring. 

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood ; 
A privacy of glorious light is thine, 
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 
Of harmony, with rapture more divine, — 
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam, 
True to the kindred points of heaven and home ! 



Wordsworth. 



XXXV. ATTITUDE OF THE MAN. 

But, soft ; behold ! lo, where it comes again ! 

I'll cross it, though it blast me. — Stay, illusion ! 
Hamlet. Shakespeare. 

How different is Hamlet's manner when he speaks to his compan- 
ions and when he addresses the ghost ? Snch a change may possibly 
be considered by some as identical with point of view, but it is 
essentially different, and at any rate a specific application of the 
principle already explained. 

Give me another horse ! — bind up my wounds! — 

Have mercy, Jesu ! — Soft ! I did but dream. — 

coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me ! — 
Richard III. Shakespeare. 

Note the changes in Richard's exclamation on awaking from his 
dream. The first two clauses are parts of his dream, the third is a 
prayer, in the fourth he wakes to a realization that it was all a 
dream, and in the last line he condemns himself. The greater the 
definiteness with which the process of the mind in passing from 
idea to idea can be revealed, the more effective will be the expres- 
sion ; but the attitude of the man is just as important. It some- 
times reveals more salient changes of feeling than the idea itself. 

" Oh ! may we all for death prepare ! 
What has he left ? and who 's his heir ? " 
Verses on his own death. Swift. 



ATTITUDE OF THE MAN. 251 

This change of mental attitude, or direction, is very common 
and very important in some forms of comedy. Dean Swift used it 
with most telling effect in his poem on his own death. What sharp 
contrasts he portrays in the mental attitudes of his card-playing 
female friends : — 

My female friends, whose tender hearts 
Have better learned to act their parts, 
Receive the news in doleful dumps : 
"The Dean is dead (pray, what is trumps ?)." 
Then, ' ' Lord have mercy on his soul ! 
(Ladies, I '11 venture for the vole). 
Six deans, they say, must bear the pall 
(I wish I knew what king to call). 
Madam, your husband will attend 
The funeral of so good a friend ? " 
" No, madam, 't is a shocking sight ; 
And he 's engaged to-morrow night ; 
My Lady Club will take it ill 
If he should fail her at quadrille. 
He loved the Dean — (I lead a heart) ; 
But dearest friends, they say, must part. 
His time is come ; he ran his race ; 
We hope he 's in a better place." 
Verses on Ms own death. Swift. 

Hood has two poems which afford very ludicrous contrasts. In 
the " Ode to my Infant Son" (see Classics page 415), he gives the 
differences between a professional attitude, such as the writer of 
poetry assumes, and which can be easily applied to the delivery of 
the preacher, the lawyer, the lecturer, or the actor when he has a 
general or vague relation to truth, and when he has a definite 
attitude to each specific idea in its turn. In one is shown vague 
general emotion, which, of course, tends to make the voice monoto- 
nous, and in the other emotion is created by the successive specific 
conceptions. So in " Domestic Asides " we have the conventional 
society attitude of mind, while in the parentheses we have the 
genuine attitude, which is usually concealed. The proper practice 
of these two poems will be helpful in breaking up mannerisms. The 
"ministerial tone," as it is called, results chiefly from the effect 
of a professional attitude of mind ; so of staginess. Mannerisms 



252 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

arise from the want of specific ideas and a definite attitude toward 
each successive conception. 

DOMESTIC ASIDES. 

1 really take it very kind — this visit, Mrs. Skinner — 
I have not seen you such an age — (the wretch has come to dinner !) 
Your daughters, too — what loves of girls ! what heads for painters' easels ! 
Come here, and kiss the infant, dears — (and give it, p'rhaps, the measles !) 

Your charming boys I see are home from Reverend Mr. Russell's — 

'T was very kind to bring them both — (what boots for my new Brussels !) 

What ! little Clara left at home ? well, now, I call that shabby ! 

I should have loved to kiss her so — (a flabby, dabby babby !) 

And Mr. S., I hope he 's well ? but, though he lives so handy, 
He never once drops in to sup — (the better for our brandy !) 
Come, take a seat — 1 long to hear about Matilda's marriage ; 
You 've come, of course, to spend the day (thank Heaven ! I hear the carriage !) 

What ! must you go ? — next time I hope you '11 give me longer measure. 

Nay, I shall see you down the stairs — (with most uncommon pleasure !) 

Good bye ! good bye ! Remember, all, next time you '11 take your dinners — 

(Now, David — mind, I 'm not at home, in future, to the Skinners.) 

Hood. 

One of the best illustrations of point of view and attitude of the 
reader's mind is Scott's account of the battle of Flodden Field in 
" Marmion." The poet so arranges his narrative as to give us a 
definite point of view from which our imagination can create and 
observe the battle. We stand on a little hill at the rear of the 
English right wing. He has made Marmion a participant in the 
battle, but he has done more; he brings Lady Clare, a delicate and 
tender maiden, in whose fate he has already enlisted a deep interest, 
to this same hill, and in direct contact with the fierceness of war. 
Thus he gives us not only a point of view, but an attitude of 
imaginative sympathy and interest. To heighten the effect she is 
finally left entirely alone amidst the noise and confusion of the 
fight. 

According to history, the whole battle turns upon the fact that 
the English reserve was brought up to aid the wing of the English 
army, which was at first defeated. Who sent the word or gave the 
key to this situation is unknown; but Scott, with that consummate 



ATTITUDE OF THE MAN. 253 

art which enabled him to unite fiction and history, makes this deed 
the last act in the life of his imaginary Marmion. He brings us 
thus into a sympathetic attitude with the turning-point of the 
battle. By these means events which in other hands would 
have been a dry record of facts, are given a living and dramatic 
sequence. 

These, however, are general points. Take the last stanza of 
the description, in which Marmion dies. The reader must iden- 
tify himself now with the attitude and bearing of Clare, now with 
that of Marmion, then with that of the Monk, and must con- 
stantly return to his own as a living spectator of the whole scene. 
He must be dominated by the whole situation and by the attitude 
of each character, and his imagination and emotion must respond 
to the spirit of every event. 

When Marmion begins to revive he is first bewildered, looks 
around for his squires, discovers them, shows antagonism, realizes 
the inevitable; then suddenly comprehends the crisis of the 
battle, sends Blount and Fitz Eustace on their errands, and sinks 
down in despair with his last few words. With all these, the 
reader must successively identify himself. 

In the last stanza, in speaking of the acts of Clare, the reader's 
feeling is unconsciously hers ; in speaking of the Monk it changes 
to his; and then to that of Marmion. The indirect quotation, 
the description of his actions, must be just as dramatic as the 
direct personations or quotations. When we come to the words 
of the Monk, we find a change in the very midst of the words of 
the speaker. He first addresses the Fiend, then tenderly ad- 
dresses the sinner, then turns aside and speaks to himself. How 
different are his expressions in these three attitudes of his mind ! 
The reader must not only feel the character and point of view of 
the priest in general, but must think and feel with him specifically 
these transitions in the* attitude of his mind. Suddenly the atten- 
tion changes to the battle, Marmion thrills with a realization that 
the victory will be gained. Then the reader must change sud- 
denly from dramatic identification with Marmion to his own lyric 
feeling, and give with the greatest intensity, but with the utmost 
simplicity, the six simple words which suggest his death. 



254 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

With that, straight up the hill there rode two horsemen drenched with 
gore, and in their arms, a helpless load, a wounded knight they bore. His 
hand still strained the broken brand ; his arms were smeared with blood and 
sand. Dragged from among the horses' feet, with dinted shield, and helmet 
beat, the falcon-crest and plumage gone, can that be haughty Marmion ! . . . 
Young Blount his armor did unlace, and, gazing on his ghastly face, said, 
" By Saint George, he 's gone ! that spear- wound has our master sped, — and 
see the deep cut on his head! good-night to Marmion." — "Unnurtured 
Blount ! thy brawling cease ; he opes his eyes," said Eustace ; " peace ! " 

When, doffed his casque, he felt free air, around 'gan Marmion wildly 
stare: "Where's Harry Blount? Fitz-Eustace where? linger ye here, ye 
hearts of hare ! redeem my pennon, — charge again ! cry — ' Marmion to the 
rescue ! ' — Vain ! last of my race — on battle-plain that shout shall ne'er be 
heard again! — yet my last thought is England's — fly, to Dacre bear my 
signet ring : tell him his squadrons up to bring. Fitz-Eustace, to Lord 
Surrey hie ; Tunstall lies dead upon the field, his life-blood stains the spotless 
shield : Edmund is down : — my life is reft ; the admiral alone is left. Let 
Stanley charge with spur of fire, — with Chester charge, and Lancashire, full 
upon Scotland's central host, or victory and England 's lost. Must I bid 
twice ?— hence, varlets! fly! leave Marmion here alone — to die." They 
parted, and alone he lay ; Clare drew her from the sight away, till pain 
wrung forth a lowly moan, and half he murmured, " Is there none, of all my 
halls have nurst, page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring of blessed water 
from the spring, to slake my dying thirst ? " 

woman ! in our hours of ease, uncertain, coy, and hard to please, and 
variable as the shade by the light, quivering aspen made ; when pain and 
anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel thou ! — Scarce were the piteous 
accents said, when, with the baron's casque, the maid to the nigh streamlet 
ran : forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears ; the plaintive voice alone she 
hears, sees but the dying man. She stooped her by the runnel's side, but in 
abhorrence backward drew ; for, oozing from the mountain's side, where raged 
the war, a dark red tide was curdling in the streamlet blue. Where shall she 
turn ! — behold her mark a little fountain cell, where water, clear as diamond- 
spark, in a stone basin fell. Above, some half-worn letters say, Drink, 

WEARY PILGRIM, DRINK AND PRAY, FOR THE KIND SOUL OF SYBIL GRAY, 

who built this cross and well. She filled the helm, and back she hied, 
and with surprise and joy espied a monk supporting Marmion's head ; a pious 
man, whom duty brought to dubious verge of battle fought, to shrive the 
dying, bless the dead. 

Deep drank Lord Marmion of the wave, and, as she stooped his brow to 
lave, — " Is it the hand of Clare," he said, " or injured Constance, bathes my 
head ? " then as remembrance rose, — " Speak not to me of shrift or prayer ! 
I must redress her woes. Short space, few words, are mine to spare ; forgive 
and listen, gentle Clare!" "Alas!" she said, "the while, — 0, think of 



ATTITUDE OF THE MAN. 255 

your immortal weal ! in vain for Constance is your zeal ; she died at Holy 
Isle." Lord Marmion started from the ground, as light as if he felt no 
wound : though in the action burst the tide, in torrents, from his wounded 
side. "Then it was truth," he said : "I knew that the dark presage must be 
true. I would the Fiend, to whom belongs the vengeance due to all her 
wrongs, would spare me but a day ! for wasting fire, and dying groan, and 
priests slain on the altar stone, might bribe him for delay. It may not be ! — 
this dizzy trance — curse on yon base marauder's lance, and doubly cursed 
my failing brand ! a sinful heart makes feeble hand." Then, fainting, down 
on earth he sunk, supported by the trembling monk. 

"With fruitless labor, Clara bound/and strove to stanch the gushing wound : 
the monk, with unavailing cares, exhausted all the Church's prayers. Ever, 
he said, that, close and near, a lady's voice was in his ear, and that the priest 
he could not hear; for that she ever sung, "In the lost battle, borne down 
by the flying, where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying / " so the 
notes rung. " Avoid thee, Fiend ! with cruel hand shake not the dying 
sinner's sand ! , 0, look, my son, upon yon sign of the Redeemer's grace 
divine ; 0, think on faith and bliss ! — By many a death-bed I have been, 
and many a sinner's parting seen, but never aught like this." The war, that 
for a space did fail, now trebly thundering swelled the gale, and — Stanley ! 
was the cry, — a light on Marmion's visage spread, and fired his glazing eye : 
with dying hand, above his head, he shook the fragment of his blade, and 
shouted, " Victory ! — Charge, Chester, charge ! on, Stanley, on ! " were the 
last words of Marmion. Scott. 

The reader must be true to the point of view he has chosen and 
the character he is representing. In explanatory clauses he has 
more freedom in changing his attitude than in representing the 
words of a character ; but such narrative phrases are none the less 
dramatic. In all cases he must have that versatility which is 
characteristic of every sympathetic and genuine man. Every 
explanatory clause of this poem must be given specific, dramatic 
character. 

The actor is confined chiefly to the attitude of a personator, but 
the reader or dramatic speaker has a greater number of attitudes 
and points of view. Hence, public reading and speaking demand 
thorough study of the principles involved in this aspect of assim- 
ilation. Every change in point of view and in the attitude of the 
man must be suggested. This cannot be given by objective scen- 
ery, as on the stage. There must be an appeal to imagination; 
hence, there must be a greater grasp of situations. He must 



256 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

suggest more points of view than the most difficult part in any 
drama. An actor may get along without dramatic instinct, but it 
is absolutely essential to the reader. 

The higher the literature the more subtle and frequent are the 
transitions. The reading of the Scriptures demands continual 
changes in point of view and attitude of the reader. In the sub- 
lime lyrics called the Psalms there are sudden changes in attention 
and sympathy in the very midst of a clause ; and the right render- 
ing of the spirit of such passages depends upon a manifestation of 
these changes. 

For we know in part, and we prophecy in part : but when fcfeat which 
is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I 
was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child : 
now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For 
now we see in a mirror, darkly ; but then face to face : now I know in 
part ; but then shall I know even as also I have been known. 

Notice in the above extract the attitude of the mind toward 
that which is perfectly familiar; no one doubts " For we know in 
part." But the end of the sentence contains something remark- 
able, and the rhythm and expression change. So in the last sen- 
tence the first clause is something familiar and understood. The 
true reader gives this with the attitude of familiarity; but he 
gives with the attitude of wonder the words " But then face to 
face." "Now I know in part" calls for an attitude of famil- 
iarity, but the last requires the attitude of wonder and sublime 
faith. Where all are read with one attitude of mind, the force, 
spirit, and even true meaning of the passage is lost. 

ELIJAH AT CARMEL. 

And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came 
to Elijah, in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab ; and I 
will send rain upon the earth. And Elijah went to shew himself unto 
Ahab. And the famine was sore in Samaria. And Ahab called Obadiah, 
which was over the household. (Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly: 
for it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that 
Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and 
fed them with bread and water.) And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go 



ATTITUDE OF THE MAN. 257 

through the land, unto all the fountains of water, and unto all the brooks : 
perad venture we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, 
that we lose not all the beasts. So they divided the land between them 
to pass throughout it : Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah 
went another way by himself. And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, 
Elijah met him : and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, Is it 
thou, my lord Elijah ? And he answered him, It is I : go, tell thy 
lord, Behold, Elijah is here. And he said, Wherein have I sinned, that 
thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me ? 
As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my 
lord hath not sent to seek thee : and when they said, He is not here, he 
took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. And 
now thousayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. And it shall 
come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the spirit of the Lord 
shall carry thee whither I know not ; and so when I come and tell Ahab, 
and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me : but I thy servant fear the 
Lord from my youth. Was it not told my lord what I did when Jeze- 
bel slew the prophets of the Lord, how I hid an hundred men of the 
Lord's prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water ? 
And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here : and he 
shall slay me. And Elijah said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before 
whom I stand, I will surely shew myself unto him to-day. So Obadiah 
went to meet Ahab, and told him: and Ahab went to meet Elijah. And 
it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Is it 
thou, thou troubler of Israel ? And he answered, I have not troubled 
Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have" forsaken the 
commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed the Baalim. Now 
therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the 
prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the Asherah 
four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table. So Ahab sent unto all the 
children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto Mount 
Carmel. And Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, How 
long halt ye between two opinions ? If the Lord be God, follow him : 
but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a 
word. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, am left a 
prophet of the Lord ; but BaaFs prophets are four hundred and fifty 
men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks ; and let them choose one 
bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, and 
put no fire under : and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on the 
wood, and put no fire under. And call ye on the name of your god, and 
I will call on the name of the Lord : and the God that answereth by 

17 



258 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well 
spoken. And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one 
bullock for yourselves, and dress it first ; for ye are many ; and call on 
the name of your god, but put no fire under. And they took the bul- 
lock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name 
of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But 
there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped about 
the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah 
mocked them, and said, Cry aloud : for he is a god ; either he is musing, 
or he has gone aside, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, 
and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after 
their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out upon 
them. And it was so, when midday was past, that they prophesied 
until the time of the offering of the evening oblation ; but there was 
neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah 
said unto all the people, Come near unto me ; and all the people came 
near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was thrown 
down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the 
tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, 
saying, Israel shall be thy name. And with the stones he built an altar 
in the name of the Lord ; and he made a trench about the altar, as great 
as would contain two measures of seed. And he put the wood in order, 
and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And he said, 
Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt offering, and 
on the wood. And he said, Do it the second time ; and they did it 
the second time. And he said, Do it the third time ; and they did it the 
third time. And the water ran round about the altar ; and he filled the 
trench also with water. And it came to pass at the time of the offering 
of the evening oblation, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, 

Lord, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known 
this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that 

1 have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, 
that this people may know that thou, Lord, art God, and that thou hast 
turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and con- 
sumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, 
and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people 
saw it, they fell on their faces : and they said, The Lord, he is God ; the 
Lord, he is God. And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal ; 
let not one of them escape. And they took them : and Elijah brought 
them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there. And Elijah said 
unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink ; for there is the sound of abun- 



ATTITUDE OF THE MAN. 259 

dance of rain. So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went 
up to the top of Carmel ; and he bowed himself down upon the earth, 
and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, Go up 
now, look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked, and said, 
There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. And it came to 
pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a cloud out of 
the sea, as small as a man's hand. And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, 
Make ready thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. 
And it came to pass in a little while, that the heaven grew black with 
clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and 
went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah ; and he 
girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. 

1 Kings 18. 

THE LADIES OF ST. JAMES'S. 
A PROPER NEW BALLAD OF THE COUNTRY AND THE TOWN. 

The ladies of St. James's go swinging to the play ; 

Their footmen run before them, with a " Stand by ! Clear the way ! " 
But Phyllida, my Phyllida ! she takes her buckled shoon, 

When we go out a-courting beneath the harvest moon. 

The ladies of St. James's wear satin on their backs ; 

They sit all night at Ombre, with candles all of wax: 
But Phyllida, my Phyllida! she dons her russet gown, 

And runs to gather May dew before the world is down. 

The ladies of St. James's ! they are so fine and fair, 
You 'd think a box of essences was broken in the air : 

But Phyllida, my Phyllida ! the breath of heath and furze, 
"When breezes blow at morning, is not so fresh as hers. 

The ladies of St. James's ! they 're painted to the eyes ; 

Their white it stays for ever, their red it never dies : 
But Phyllida, my Phyllida ! her color comes and goes ; 

It trembles to a lily, — it wavers to a rose. 

The ladies of St. James's ! You scarce can understand "* 
The half of all their speeches, their phrases are so grand: 

But Phyllida, my Phyllida ! her shy and simple words 
Are clear as after rain-drops the music of the birds. 

The ladies of St. James's ! they have their fits and freaks ; 

They smile on you — for seconds, they frown on you — for weeks : 
But Phyllida, my Phyllida ! come either storm or shine, 

From Shrove-tide unto Shrove-tide, is always true — and mine. 



260 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

My Pliyllida ! my Phyllida ! I care not though they heap 
The hearts of all St. James's, and give me all to keep ; 

I care not whose the "beauties of all the world may be, 
For Phyllida — for Phyllida is all the world to me ! 

Austin Dobson. 



XXXVI. PERSONATION AND PARTICIPATION. 

" Halt ! " — the dust-browned ranks stood fast ; 

" Fire ! " — out blazed the rifle-blast. 

Whittier. 

In reading these two lines, the quoted words are given in one 
way, and the rest in another. The two words quoted are given 
so as to suggest the spirit of a commander at the head of an army ; 
they are given objectively, according to our conception of a dis- 
tinct character in a specific situation. If both lines are read nat- 
urally, with intense realization of the situation, the subordinate 
clauses have also a distinct and definite character. They are made 
to manifest the feeling which awakens in our own heart in con- 
templation of the events. We consciously or unconsciously be- 
come sympathetic spectators of the scene. As we hear the 
command, we begin to feel anxious for the flag and for Barbara 
Fritchie; and as the command to fire is given, the intense sus- 
pense increases. 

The mind's attitude in speaking the quoted words may be called 
Personation, and that in speaking the subordinate clauses may be 
called Participation. In the first, we dramatically represent or 
suggest a character. In the second, the reader's own feelings and 
sympathies in relation to the events are expressed; he becomes a 
sympathetic participant in the scene. At first, the speaker tries 
to represent the feeling, bearing, or character of a man; his own 
feeling is subordinated to his identification with the feeling of 
another; but in the subordinate clauses his own emotions assert 
themselves, and he himself becomes in imagination a part of the 
scene. 

These two attitudes, or forms of manifesting dramatic sympa- 
thy, are universally present in all forms of literature, are found 
in the conversation of daily life, and constitute two modes of dra- 



PERSONATION AND PARTICIPATION. 261 

matic expression which are very important. They ever act in 
co-operation ; and one must never be subordinated or used to the 
entire exclusion of the other. One is more objective, the other 
more subjective; one represents, the other manifests; one is 
occasional, the other almost continuous. One reveals our con- 
ception of a character, and our identification with the processes 
of his mind and his modes of expression; the other shows our 
own feeling, our sympathetic or dramatic participation in the 
scene, our response not only to the character or characters, but to 
every event and situation. 

Which of these modes is superior? Both are natural and 
necessary; but our public readers, and even our speakers, at the 
present time incline to exaggerate dramatic personation, and to 
forget entirely that there is such a thing as dramatic participation. 
The reader must be himself before he can be any one else. Even 
an actor must himself have a great personality if he is to reflect 
or represent a great personality. He must be a well educated 
man, with all his powers harmoniously trained, if he is to identify 
himself sympathetically with the highest characteristics. 

Participation as a form of dramatic assimilation is very apt to 
be overlooked. There are certain points in which its importance 
is clearly shown. Personation is used only occasionally ; it occurs 
only in direct quotation; but participation is continuous, and ap- 
plies to every form of expression. Personation belongs only to a 
few forms of literature, participation to all. Participation be- 
longs to subordinate clauses, and leads to a great variety of points 
of view; personation, on the contrary, must present a definite 
conception of a character. 

Again, dramatic participation in ordinary reading and narration 
must lead up to personation, must be its justification. Mere 
mechanical personation is mockery. It may occur in inferior 
literature for mere entertainment; but in the highest forms, in 
tragedy, and in all sublime histrionic expression, sympathetic par- 
ticipation is the foundation and background of all personation. 

In the following extract from Longfellow's " Robert of Sicily, " 
there are many clauses where participation leads to personation, 
and where true expression flows naturally from one into the other. 



262 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

For example, the words " Half choked with rage " are given with 
the direct realization of Robert's character and mood, which only 
breaks out in his direct words, " Open ; ? t is I, the King ! " If 
the explanatory clause is given tamely, and a sudden endeavor be 
made to represent Robert in the quotation, we have an illustration 
of the most vicious form of public reading, which is, alas ! too 
common, — an imitative manipulation of the voice in certain words 
or clauses, without any imaginative or dramatic assimilation of the 
spirit of the poem. 

When he awoke, it was already night ; the church was empty, and there 
was no light, save where the lamps, that glimmered few and faint, lighted a 
little space before some saint. He started from his seat and gazed around, 
but saw no living thing, and heard no sound. He groped towards the door, 
but it was locked ; he cried aloud, and listened, and then knocked, and ut- 
tered awful threaten ings and complaints and imprecations upon men and 
saints. The sounds re-echoed from the roof and walls as if dead priests were 
laughing in their stalls. 

At length the sexton, hearing from without the tumult of the knocking 
and the shout, and thinking thieves were in the house of prayer, came with 
his lantern, asking, " Who is there ? " Half choked with rage, King Robert 
fiercely said, " Open; 'tis I, the King ! Art thou afraid ? " The frightened 
sexton, muttering, with a curse, " This is some drunken vagabond, or worse ! " 
turned the great key and flung the portal wide. A man rushed by him at a 
single stride, haggard, half-naked, without hat or cloak, who neither turned, 
nor looked at him, nor spoke, but leaped into the blackness of the night, and 
vanished like a spectre from his sight. 

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane, and Valmond, Emperor of Alle- 
maine, despoiled of his magnificent attire, bareheaded, breathless, and besprent 
with mire, with sense of wrong and outrage, desperate, strode on and thun- 
dered at the palace gate ; rushed through the courtyard, thrusting in his rage 
to right and left each seneschal and page, and hurried up the broad and 
sounding stair, his white face ghastly in the torches' glare. From hall to hall 
he passed with "breathless speed; voices and cries he heard, but did not heed, 
until at last he reached the banquet-room, blazing with light, and breathing 
with perfume. 

There on the dais sat another king, wearing his robes, his crown, his 
signet-ring, King Robert's self in features, form, and height, but all trans- 
figured with angelic light ! It was an angel ; and his presence there with a 
divine effulgence filled the air, — an exaltation piercing the disguise, though 
none the hidden angel recognize. 

A moment speechless, motionless, amazed, the throneless monarch on the 
angel gazed, who met his look of anger and surprise with the divine coinpas- 



-_ 



PERSONATION AND PARTICIPATION. 263 

sion of his eyes ; then said, ' ' Who art thou ? and why com'st thou here ? " 
To which King Robert answered, with a sneer, "I am the King, and come to 
claim my own from an impostor, who usurps my throne ! " And suddenly, at 
these audacious words, up sprang the angry guests, and drew their swords. 
The angel answered, with unruffled brow, " Nay, Dot the King, but the King's 
jester ; thou henceforth shall wear the bells and scalloped cape, and for thy 
counsellor shall lead an ape ; thou shalt obey my servants when they call, and 
wait upon my henchmen in the hall." 

Deaf to King Robert's threats and cries and prayers, they thrust him from 
the hall and down the stairs. A group of tittering pages ran before, and as 
they opened wide the folding-door, his heart failed, for he heard with strange 
alarms the boisterous laughter of the men at arms, and all the vaulted cham- 
ber roar and ring with the mock plaudits of " Long live the King ! " 

In the following poem, the writer adopts the point of view of a 
sympathetic spectator as the predominant one. The first lines must 
be given with great imaginative realization of the situation and 
the scene. The darkness must be felt by the reader, the silent 
woods, the subtle sense of danger and duty. As a sympathetic 
spectator he must even speculate as to what the soldier is think- 
ing. In " Hush ! hark ! " he stops and listens with his hero, and 
in the next line becomes reassured. Then the reader's or author's 
own words express the thoughts, and then describe " the wrench- 
ing of the gun. " He is led gradually to the personation of the 
enemy, and also to the objective rendering of the hero's cry of 
alarm. 

THE FALL OF D'ASSAS. 

Alone, through gloomy forest shades, a soldier went by night ; 
No moonbeam pierced the dusky glades, no star shed guiding light ; 
Yet, on his vigil's midnight round, the youth all cheerly passed, 
Unchecked by aught of boding sound that muttered in the blast. 

Where were his thoughts that lonely hour ? In his far home ; perchance 
His father's hall, his mother's bower, 'midst the gay vines of France. 
Hush ! hark ! did stealing steps go by ? Came not faint whispers near ? 
No ! The wild wind hath many a sigh, amid the foliage sere. 

Hark ! yet again ! — and from his hand what grasp hath wrenched the blade ? 
O, single 'midst a hostile band, young soldier, thou 'rt betrayed ! 
" Silence ! " in undertones they cry ; "no whisper — not a breath ! 
The sound that warns thy comrades nigh shall sentence thee to death." 



264 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Still at the bayonet's point he stood, and strong to meet the blow ; 
And shouted, 'midst his rushing blood, "Arm ! arm ! Auvergne ! the foe ! " 
The stir, the tramp, the bugle-call, he heard their tumults grow ; 
And sent his dying voice through all, — "Auvergne ! Auvergne ! the foe ! " 

Mrs. Hemans. 

The importance of dramatic participation is especially seen in 
the reading of the Scriptures. We can personate only what is on 
a level with us, or is below us. We cannot personate God. 
But while we cannot dramatically represent what is above us, 
by dramatic participation we can reverently and truthfully suggest 
the most exalted idea and experience possible for the human soul. 
We can even suggest that which transcends human understanding. 
Participation can show the imaginative and emotional realization 
of that which is only an object of faith, and not an object of 
sense. 

In the reading of the Scriptures, therefore, where God is sup- 
posed to speak, though we cannot dramatically personate, we can 
disclose the impression produced upon us, or the effect of His 
words. We do not give His words as we suppose them to have 
been spoken; we manifest the reverence and awe which they 
would cause in ourselves if we heard him. This manifestation of 
subjective impression is the noblest power of vocal expression. 

In the following sublime passage how weak would be the 
effort to imitate or personate the " still, small voice ; " but how 
tremendously effective it is to manifest, in pronouncing these words, 
the feeling which they awakened! The same is true of the words 
spoken directly to Elijah. 

And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had 
slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger 
unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make 
not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time. 
And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to 
Beer-Sheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But 
he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat 
down under a juniper tree : and he requested for himself that he might 
die ; and said, It is enough ; now, Lord, take away my life ; for I am 
not better than my fathers. And he lay down and slept under a juniper 
tree ; and, behold, an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and 



PERSONATION AND PARTICIPATION. 265 

eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was at his head a cake baken 
on the coals, and a cruse of water. And he did eat and drink, and laid 
him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second 
time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat ; because the journey is 
too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in 
the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the 
mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there ; 
and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, 
What doest thou here, Elijah ? And he said, I have been very jealous 
for the Lord, the God of hosts ; for the children of Israel have forsaken 
thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with 
the sword : and I, even I only, am left ; and they seek my life, to take 
it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the 
Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind 
rent the mountains, and break in pieces the rocks before the Lord ; but 
the Lord was not in the wind : and after the wind an earthquake ; but 
the Lord was not in the earthquake : and after the earthquake a fire ; 
but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 
And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his 
mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, 
behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, 
Elijah ? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God 
of hosts ; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown 
down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword ; and I, even 
I only, am left ; and they seek my life, to take it away. And the Lord 
said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus : 
and when thou comest, thou shalt anoint Hazael to be king over 
Syria : and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over 
Israel : and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou 
anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass, that 
him that escapeth from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and 
him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet will 
I leave me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not 
bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. So he 
departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plow- 
ing, with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelve: 
and Elijah passed over unto him, and cast his mantleaipon him. And 
he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, 
kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he 
said unto him, Go back again ; for what have I done to thee ? And 
he returned from following him, and took the yoke of oxen, and slew 



266 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 






unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after 
Elijah, and ministered unto him. 

1 Kings 19. 

Actors have more personation than participation ; they primarily 
aim to represent everything objectively. In orators, however, dram- 
atic participation transcends personation. It is only occasionally, 
and in more playful moods, or in the subordinate parts, that per- 
sonation is found in the highest forms of oratory. The public 
reader should have thorough command of both modes. This is 
another matter which goes to show, that if public readers were 
thoroughly educated, and imbued with the spirit of art and the 
various forms of literature, and had right conceptions of the char- 
acter and various forms of poetic expression, they could discharge a 
higher function in public entertainment than is possible on the 
stage. 

The true actor, however, must have participation. If his art is 
merely representative, it tends to become merely imitative and 
mechanical, and is usually confined to the lower forms of dramatic 
representation. Even in him sympathetic participation must un- 
derlie, cause, and continually transcend all personation. 

Assimilation thus acts in these two ways. They are both nat- 
ural, and in the highest dramatic art complement each other. The 
true reader must show his own feeling and point of view, the 
sympathetic attitude of his mind, and manifest his own partici- 
pation in the smallest event. As the stage requires many subordi- 
nate characters, each of whom must show his own interest in the 
moving scene in order to create illusion, so the speaker or reader 
must show sympathetic identification of himself with every subor- 
dinate clause and phrase. Nothing must be neutral, negative, or 
indifferent. Everything must be positive, and bear a sympathetic 
relationship with the great centre of interest, and must reflect as in 
a mirror the central spirit of the situation. 

my husband, brave and gentle ! my Bernal, look once more 
On the blessed cross before thee ! Mercy ! mercy ! all is o'er." 
Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down to rest ; 
Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast. . . . 



PERSONATION AND PARTICIPATION. 267 

Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay, 
Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away ; 
But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt, 
She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol belt. 

"With a stifled cry of horror straight she turn'd away her head ; 

With a sad and bitter feeling look'd she back upon her dead ; 

But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain, 

And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again. 

Whisper'd low the dying soldier, press'd her hand, and faintly smiled : 
Was that pitying face his mother's ? did she watch beside her child ? 
All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied ; 
With her kiss upon his forehead, " Mother ! " murmur'd he, and died. 

" A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth 
From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lonely, in the North ! " 
Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead, 
And turn'd to soothe the living still, and bind the wounds which bled. 
Angels of Buena Vista. Whittier. 

I once saw a poor fellow, keen and clever, 

Witty and wise : — he paid a man a visit, 

And no one noticed him, and no one ever 

Gave him a welcome. " Strange ! " cried I, "whence is it ? " 

He walked on this side, then on that, 

He tried to introduce a social chat ; 
Now here, now there, in vain he tried ; 
Some formally and freezingly replied, 

And some 
Said by their silence — " Better stay at home/' 

A rich man burst the door ; 

As Croesus rich, I 'm sure 
He could not pride himself upon his wit, 
And as for wisdom, he had none of it ; 
He had what 's better ; he had wealth. 

What a confusion ! — all stand up erect — 
These crowd around to ask him of his health ; 

These bow in honest duty and respect ; 
And these arrange a sofa or a chair, 
And these conduct him there. 
" Allow me, sir, the honor ; " — Then a bow 
Down to the earth — Is 't possible to show 
Meet gratitude for such kind condescension ? 



268 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

The poor man hung his head, 

And to himself he said, 
" This is indeed beyond my comprehension : " 

Then looking round, 

One friendly face he found, 
And said, " Pray tell me why is wealth preferred 
To wisdom ? " — "That 's a silly question, friend ! 
Replied the other — " have you never heard, 

A man may lend his store 

Of gold or silver ore, 
But wisdom none can borrow, none can lend ? " 



Khemnitzer. 



XXXVH. ASSIMILATION AND QUOTATION. 

Whatever I do, and whatever I say, 
Aunt Tabitha tells me that is n't the way ; 
When she was a girl (forty summers ago), 
Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so. 

In these lines, by Dr. Holmes, there are no quotation marks; 
but whenever a statement is made by a character similar to the 
one supposed to be speaking in the poem, an objective coloring 
will be given to such phrases as " that is n't the way " and " they 
never did so." These two clauses are only indirect quotations, if 
they can be regarded as quotations at all. But one with a vigor- 
ous imagination and a strong dramatic instinct, especially in ex- 
citable moods, will involuntarily quote and personate the one 
whose sentiments he is supposed to represent. This is" especially 
true of such emotions as sarcasm and antagonism; there is a 
greater tendency to caricature and exaggeration in these emotions, 
but the principle holds true. There is a universal desire for defi- 
nite representation. The fables which have lived from age to age, 
the myths of the race, the historical legends, arose from this de- 
mand of the imagination. The dramatic instinct has many forms, 
and is universal. It is often very imaginative and suggestive. 
Making the tomb and the rose directly speak in the following 
poem awakens deep feeling in our hearts, but the representation 
is very delicate and subjective. 

The Tomb said to the Kose, " Tell me, with all the tears Morn sheds o'er 
thee, what dost thou do, fair garden pride ? " 



ASSIMILATION AND QUOTATION. 269 

" With all that drops, day after day, into thy yawning depths, oh, say ! 
what dost thou do ? " 

The Rose replied, "Sad Tomb! into a subtle scent of ambergris and 
honey, blent, do I convert those dew-drops bright ! " 

"And I create, Rosebud fair, from ev'ry soul which enters here, an 
an gel -form, with wings of light ! " 

The Tomb and the Rose. Victor Hugo. 

In the vocal rendering of such passages, the dramatic represen- 
tation must be delicately suggested. If made too literal, the spirit 
of the poetry is spoiled. The tomb and the rose are ideal concep- 
tions, and there is dramatic participation rather than dramatic 
personation. This sympathetic assimilation is subjective, and has 
very little objective representation. The imaginative conception 
of the truth has become so vivid as to take dramatic form, but the 
feeling is fully as lyric as it is dramatic ; or, perhaps, it should be 
said that the highest dramatic expression is as fully subjective as 
it is objective. 

The distinction between lyric and dramatic often exists only in 
name. All great dramatic art implies the lyric, and all lyric art 
contains a dramatic element. Just as subjective and objective are 
two aspects of the same thing, so dramatic and lyric are different' 
points of view, different modes by which the human soul realizes 
truth. In all great poetry and art, and in all rendering, there is 
the union and co-ordination of antithetic elements. 

If we take up now a common dialogue in which ignoble emo- 
tions chiefly predominate, the difference will be more saliently 
shown in expression. Here the quotations are made literal, the 
objective element is far more pronounced, and even the types of 
character more definitely rendered. 

MY SPOUSE NANCY. 

Husband, husband, cease your strife, nor longer idly rave, sir ; 

Though I am your wedded wife, yet I am not your slave, sir. 

" One of two must still obey, Nancy, Nancy ; 

Is it man, or woman, say, my spouse Nancy ? " 

If 't is still the lordly word, service and obedience, 

I '11 desert my sovereign lord, and so good bye, allegiance ! 

"Sad will I be, so bereft, Nancy, Nancy, 

Yet I '11 try to make a shift, my spouse Nancy." 



270 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

My poor heart then break it must, my last hour — I'm near it : 
When you lay me in the dust, think, think how you will bear it. 
"I will hope and trust in Heaven, Nancy, Nancy ; 
Strength to bear it will be given, my spouse Nancy." 
Well, sir, from the silent dead still I '11 try to daunt you ; 
Ever round your midnight bed horrid sprites shall haunt you. 
" I'll wed another like ray dear Nancy, Nancy ; 
Then all ghosts will fly for fear — my spouse Nancy." 

Quotation marks are mechanical, and can show no degrees ; but 
vocal expression must quote, and be able to suggest various de- 
grees of representation. The voice must show delicate and indi- 
rect references and indications as well as the most direct quotations. 
There must be sympathetic assimilation of the spirit of the pas- 
sage, and among the complex elements the most important are 
the persons who spoke the words. Truthful rendering must at 
all times show the direct participation of the reader in the thought 
and feeling of the original speaker; and at times his participation 
is so intense that indirect quotations become more important than 
direct ones, and even a clause which shows the effect of the 
direct quotation upon the reader or speaker becomes more impor- 
tant than either. In some poems or stories, where the sympa- 
thetic feeling is more or less lyric, the mind may be so intensely 
concerned with the universal truth, or the deep passion, that even 
direct quotations are placed in the background. No rule can be 
laid down; it is a matter of dramatic instinct, and different poems 
will be read differently on different occasions, and by different 
persons. 

There is among our public readers an almost universal tendency 
to exaggerate quotations unduly. These are given great impor- 
tance and emphasis, while clauses which are not quoted are ren- 
dered by the voice as something negative and neutral, without any 
definite coloring or character. But especially in the higher forms 
of vocal expression, such as the reading of the Scriptures, the 
epic, or the ballad, the result of this neutralizing of all but quota- 
tions is an artificial effect. In comedy and farce, the method tends 
to confine readers to the lower forms of literature. 

Occasionally, explanatory clauses are intended by the author to 
be subordinate, as in Browning's "Ben Karshook's Wisdom." 



ASSIMILATION AND QUOTATION. 271 

This poem is essentially dramatic. The whole thought of the 
poem is centred in the speakers and the sentiments they utter, 
not in any event or in the effect of their words upon the listener. 
Such forms of literature, however, are unusual. 

BEN KARSHOOK'S WISDOM. 
I. 
" Would a man 'scape the rod V — Rabbi Ben Karshook saith, 
" See that he turns to God the day before his death." 
"Ay, could a man inquire when it shall come ! " I say. 
The Rabbi's eye shoots fire — " Then let him turn to-day ! " 

ir. 
Quoth a young Sadducee, — " Reader of many rolls, 
Is it so certain we have, as they tell us, souls ? " — 
" Son, there is no reply ! " the Rabbi bit his beard : 
'. Certain, a soul have / — We may have none," he sneered. 
Thus Karshook, the Hiram's- Hammer, the Right- Hand Temple column, 
Taught babes their grace in grammar, and struck the simple, solemn. 

Browning. 

WHEN. 

Sun comes, moon comes, time slips away. 
Sun sets, moon sets, love, fix a day. 

" A year hence, a year hence," " we shall both be gray." 
" A month hence, a month hence." " Far, far away." 
" A week hence, a week hence." " Ah, the long delay." 
" Wait a little, wait a little, you shall fix a day." 
"To-morrow, love, to-morrow, and that's an age away." 
Blaze upon her window, sun, and honour all the day. 



To-day my lord of Amiens and myself 

Did steal behind him, as he lay along 

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out 

Upon the brook that brawls along this wood ; 

To the which place a poor sequestered stag, 

That from the hunters' aim had ta'en a hurt, 

Did come to languish ; . . . thus the hairy fool, 

Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, 

Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, 

"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou mak'st a testament 

As worldings do, giving thy sum of more 

To that which had too much : " then, being there alone, 



272 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Left and abandoned of his velvet friends : 

" ' T is right" quoth he, " thus misery doth part 

The flux of company ; " anon, a careless herd, 

Full of the pasture, jumps along by him, 

And never stays to greet him : "Ay," quoth Jaques, 

" Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens ; 

' T is just the fashion: wherefore do you look 

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there ? " 

Thus most invectively he pierceth through 

The body of the country, city, court, 

Yea, and of this our life ; swearing that we 

Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what 's worse, 

To fright the animals, and to kill them up, 

In their assigned and native dwelling-place. 



Shakespeare. 






THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. 

It was the schooner Hesperus that sail'd the wintry sea ; 
And the skipper had taken his little daughter to bear him company. 
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, her cheeks like the dawn of day, 
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds that ope in the mouth of May. 

The skipper he stood beside the helm, his pipe was in his mouth, 

And he watch'd how the veering flaw did blow the smoke now west, now south. 

Then up and spake an old sailor, — had sail'd the Spanish main, — 

" I pray thee, put into yonder port, for I fear a hurricane. 

" Last night the Moon had a golden ring, and to-night no Moon we see ! " 
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, and a scornful laugh laugh'd he. 
Colder and louder blew the wind, a gale from the north-east ; 
The snow fell hissing in the brine, and the billows froth'd like yeast. 

Down came the storm, and smote amain the vessel in its strength ; 

She shudder'd and paused, like a frighten'd steed, then leap'd her cable's 

length. 
" Come hither ! come hither ! my little daughter, and do not tremble so ; 
For I can weather the roughest gale, that ever wind did blow." 

He wrapp'd her warm in his seaman's coat? against the stinging blast ; 

He cut a rope from a broken spar, and bound her to the mast. 

" father ! I hear the church-bells ring, say, what may it be ? " 

" ' T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast ! " and he steer'd for the open sea. 

" father ! I hear the sound of guns, say, what may it be ? " 
" Some ship in distress, that cannot live in such an angry sea ! " 
"0 father ! I see a gleaming light, say, what may it be ?" 
Rut the father answer'd never a word, a frozen corpse was he. 



ASSIMILATION AND DIALECT. 273 

Lash'd to the helm, all stiff and stark, with his face turn'd to the skies, 
The lantern gleam'd through the gleaming snow on his fix'd and glassy eyes. 
Then the maiden clasp'd her hands and pray'd, that saved she might be ; 
And she thought of Christ, who still'd the wave on the Lake of Galilee. 

And fast thro' the midnight dark and drear, thro' the whistling sleet and snow, 
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept towards the reef of Norman's Woe. 
And ever, the fitful gusts between, a sound came from the land ; 
It was the sound of the trampling surf on the rocks and the hard sea-sand. 

The breakers were right beneath her bows, she drifted a dreary wreck, 
And a whooping billow swept the crew like icicles from her deck. 
She struck where the white and fleecy waves look'd soft as carded wool, 
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side like the horns of an angry bull. 

Her rattling shrouds, all sheath'd in ice, with the masts went by the board ; 
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank. Ho ! ho ! the breakers roar'd ! 
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, a fisherman stood aghast, 
To see the form of a maiden fair lash'd close to a drifting mast. 

The salt sea was frozen on her breast, the salt tears in her eyes ; 
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea- weed, on the billows fall and rise. 
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, in the midnight and the snow ! 
Christ save us all from a death like this, on the reef of Norman's Woe ! 

Longfellow. 



XXXVm. ASSIMILATION AND DIALECT. 

Very close to quotation or personation is dialect. How far shall 
a reader or an actor, in giving the speech of others, present the 
peculiarities of utterance or dialect ? It is suggestive that dialect 
readings are considered as belonging to the lower class of litera- 
ture. There is a tendency to the merely imitative, as dialectic 
tendencies are accidental, and have little vital connection with the 
processes of thought and feeling. There is a connection, however, 
in some forms of humor and pathos, or in grotesque expression; 
note its expressive power, for example, in Irish or Scotch. 

Dialect does not consist in the pronunciation of elements, or 
even of individual words ; hence, mere change of vowels or conso- 
nants will not make the dialect expressive or natural. There is a 
certain melody or rhythm which is peculiar to every nation. This 
is very important as a means of expression, because it shows their 
peculiarity of character, their modes of thought and feeling. 



274 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

In fact, dialectic changes, though at first they seem to be super- 
ficial, and merely a subject for imitation, are expressive of life. 
They are not adopted for their own sake, but heighten the impres- 
sion of truthfulness. 

Hence, dialect when used is a part of the process of assimila- 
tion. They must result from sympathetic identification of the 
reader with his character. He must so reproduce in himself the 
processes of thinking and feeling that dialect is made a necessity. 

Imitation, therefore, is apt to mislead. Even in matters of 
dialect, it tends to reproduce the literal rather than the essential. 
Where the whole energy is taken up with the literal mispronunci- 
ations, the real process of thinking, peculiarities of feeling, the 
oddities of the character, — in other words, the psychic elements, — 
are entirely lost. 

It should be carefully noted by all public readers that dialectic 
peculiarities can be only suggested. To give Scotch or Irish dia- 
lect in an extreme form renders the words unintelligible. All 
expression must be clear and easily understood. 

. . . An' the judge took a big pinch iv snuff, and he says, 
"Are you guilty or not, Jim O'Brien, av you plaze ? " 

An' all held their breath in the silence of dhread, 

An' Shamus O'Brien made answer and said : 

" My lord, if you ask me, if in my life-time 

I thought any treason, or did any crime 

That should call to my cheek, as I stand alone here, 

The hot blush of shame, or the coldness of fear, 

Though I stood by the grave to receive my death-blow, 

Before God and the world I would answer you, no ! 

But if you would ask me, as I think it like, 

If in the rebellion I carried a pike, 

An' fought for ould Ireland from the first to the close, 

An' shed the heart's blood of her bitterest foes, 

I answer you, yes ; and I tell you again, 

Though I stand here to perish, it 's my glory that then 

In her cause I was willing my veins should run dhry, 

An' that now for her sake I am ready to die." 

Then the silence was great, and the jury smiled bright, 
An' the judge was n't sorry the job was made light ; 



ASSIMILATION AND DIALECT. 275 

By my sowl, it 's himself was the crabbed ould chap ! 

In a twinklin' he pulled on his ugly black cap. 

Then Shamus's mother in the crowd standin' by, 

Called out to the judge with a pitiful cry : 

" O judge ! darlin', don't, Oh, don't say the word ! 

The crathur is young, have mercy, my lord ; 

He was foolish ; he did n't know what he was doin*. 

You don't know him, my lord, — Oh, don't give him to ruin ! 

He 's the kindliest crathur, the tendherest hearted ; 

Don't part us forever, we that 's so long parted. 

Judge, mavourneen, forgive him, forgive him, my lord, 

An' God will forgive you — Oh, don't say the word ! " 

That was the first minute that O'Brien was shaken, 

When he saw that he was not quite forgot or forsaken ; 

An' down his pale cheeks, at the word of his mother, 

The big tears wor ruunin' fast, one afther th' other ; 

An' two or three times he endeavored to spake, 

But the sthrong, manly voice used to falther and break ; 

But at last, by the strength of his high-mounting pride, 

He conquered and masthered his griefs swelling tide, 

" An'," says he, "mother, darlin', don't break your poor heart. 

For, sooner or later, the dearest must part. " 



CUDDLE DOON. 

The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht wi' muckle faucht an' din. 

" 0, try and sleep, ye waukrife rogues ; your father's comin' in." 

They never heed a word I speak : I try to gie a froon ; 

But aye I hap them up, an' cry, " 0, bairnies, cuddle doon ! " 

Wee Jamie wi' the curley heid — he aye sleeps next the wa' — 
Bangs up an' cries, " I want a piece " — the rascal starts them a'. 
I rin an' fetch them pieces, drinks, — they stop a wee the soun', — 
Then draw the blankets up, and cry, "Noo, weanies, cuddle doon ! 

But, ere five minutes gang, wee Rab cries oot, frae 'neath the claes, 
" Mither, mak' Tarn gie ower at ance ; he's kittlin' wi' his taes." 
The mischief's in that Tam for tricks : he 'd bother half the toon ; 
But aye I hap them up, and cry, " 0, bairnies, cuddle doon ! " 

At length they hear their father's fit ; an', as he steeks the door, 
They turn their faces to the wa', while Tam pretends to snore. 
" Hae a' the weans been gude ? " he asks, as he pits aff his shoon. 
" The bairnies, John, are in their beds, an* lang since cuddled doon. 



276 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

An', just afore we bed oorsels, we look at oor wee lambs : 

Tam has his airni roun' wee Rab's neck, an' Rab his ainn roun' Tarn's. 

I lift wee Jamie up the bed, an', as I straik each croon, 

1 whisper, till my heart fills up, " 0, bairnies, cuddle doon ! " 

The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht wi' mirth that 's dear to me ; 
But soon the big warl's cark an' care will quaten doon their glee : 
Yet, come what will to ilka ane, may He who sits aboon 
Aye whisper, though their pows be bauld, "0, bairnies, cuddle doon ! " 

Anderson. 



XXXIX. PURPOSES IN EXPRESSION. 

The opinion is held by many that art aims simply to entertain or 
to amuse ; that it exists entirely for its own sake, and if consistent 
with itself, no more is required of it. It thus has nothing to do 
with morals or the ethical nature of man, and is hence without 
purpose. Oratory, on the other hand, such men consider, aims to 
instruct or to persuade, and hence striving for something beyond 
itself, has an ethical element which separates it from such an art 
as painting, or the drama. • 

All expression, however, aims directly or indirectly to produce 
an effect upon another mind. Hence, consciously or unconsciously, 
every form of art has some kind of purpose. The chief difference 
between an artistic purpose and the oratorical purpose is the fact 
that in art the purpose is hidden, indirect or more or less uncon- 
scious, while in teaching or speaking, the purpose is manifest, 
direct, and consciously dominates the artist's method of pro- 
cedure, if it is not frankly stated by him and understood by his 
audience. 

This distinction is not wholly true. A purely conscious or direct 
presentation of the aim is only a command, and is not only inartistic, 
but does not even appeal to the rational nature. A mere command 
requires unquestioning, unthinking obedience, and this, under no 
consideration, could be dignified by the name of Oratory. 

Thus the common distinction is not adequate ; but if we seek 
deeper, we find a common ground upon which a noble speech and 
a noble painting alike depend. Expression of every form in 



PURPOSES IN EXPRESSION. 277 

poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, the drama, and oratory, 
aims to awaken the same faculties in another mind which are 
active in the mind of the artist. 

All expression is founded upon communion of different minds. 
The painter tries to convey to another the impression a landscape 
makes upon him. If he merely mechanically reproduces the form 
and colors of the scene, he belongs on a very low plane. Only in 
proportion as he manifests his own faculties or feeling in realizing 
the scene, will he rise into the realm of poetry, or the sublime in 
art. Thus the fundamental test of nobility of expression depends 
upon the degree to which the artist manifests the activity of his 
faculties and awakens the imagination and feeling of the minds he 
addresses. 

Thus, every form of art endeavors to influence the human 
mind. Purpose is implied even in that literature or work which 
aims simply to amuse. 

The element which underlies all purposes in expression might 
possibly be best named by the word " influence." " Macbeth" is- not 
a sermon, or a didactic lesson upon the nature of the human 
conscience; but it influences men by making them realize the 
nature of conscience and the results of disobeying it. A great 
painting has profound movement. The Cologne Cathedral may 
influence men to worship. Its soaring arches may soften the 
hardest heart that enters, and cause the most irreverent to remove 
his hat. 

Accordingly, in proportion as a speaker unconsciously influences 
men without dictation, will his effect be the greater. 

The conscious or the oratorio purposes are, according to Delsarte, 
to instruct, to move, and to persuade. 

These three purposes are simply the outgrowth of the three 
natures of man. Instruction is an endeavor to make a man think. 
To move men is simply to awaken them. Persuasion aims not 
only to make a man think and to awaken him to the realization of 
certain facts, but it goes even farther, and endeavors to arouse his 
will. 

These three do not include, of course, all purposes; they simply 
name three of the most important conscious purposes. The speaker 



278 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

may convince, inspire, arouse, rebuke, reprove, exhort, entreat, 
reject, condemn, judge, and the like, but the character of all of 
these depends upon the part of the nature of the speaker which is 
awake, and the part of his auditors to which he appeals. » 

There is no worse fault nor more common one in speaking than 
monotony of purpose. A man who does nothing but teach will 
affect only a small part of the nature of his auditors, and will 
become a pedant. He who seeks only to interest or to move is apt 
to appeal more and more to the lower nature of his audience, and 
become a demagogue or a sensationalist. He who exhorts and 
tries to persuade men continually without making them think or 
without making their vital natures live, also becomes abnormal. 

These purposes vary continually. One is dependent upon 
another ; they continually intermingle, and any true speaker makes 
constant transitions from one to another. He only is a great orator 
who is able to pass readily from any one purpose to another. The 
speaker must appeal to the whole nature of his audience, and be able 
to move any part of the nature of man at will. Hence, exercise 
in a great variety of purposes embodied in very short, sharply 
contrasted extracts is very important for all. 

There are three professions named on account of these purposes; 
but while the teacher more especially teaches, and the popular 
orator simply moves, and the preacher persuades, still these three 
purposes are combined in all noble expression. 

There are many passages of literature in which the definite aim 
regarding another mind is not manifest. There are many other 
passages which may be used with any one of the purposes. 
Students should arrange a great many purposes, such as to teach, 
to warn, to encourage, to apologize, to reprove, to rebuke, to 
inspire, to arouse, to allay excitement; select passages for their 
illustration, and practise them in contrast. 

These may be given also under different situations. For example, 
to arouse to joy, to arouse to battle, to arouse courage, to arouse 
hope, to arouse faith. The variations are innumerable. 

Purposes should not be confounded with emotion. It is good 
practice to keep the purpose the same, but vary the feeling or the 
person against whom the feeling is directed. 



PURPOSES IN EXPRESSION. 279 

Problem XXV. Contrast several extracts with varied purposes, and 
conceive and assimilate carefully the difference of aim. 



Hurrah ! hurrah ! the west wind comes freshening down the bay ! 
The rising sails are filling, give way, my lads, give way. 



WhiUier. 



The aids to noble life are all within. 



Cornelia. thou good Kent, how shall I live and work, 
To match thy goodness ? My life will be too short, 
And every measure fail me. 



"-FoPwWARD, the light brigade ! Charge for the guns ! " he said. 

Tennyson. 

When all thy mercies, my God, my rising soul surveys, 
Transported with the view, I 'm lost in wonder, love, and praise. 



Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful. 
Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile, 
And touch .thv instrument a strain or two ? 



We have not wings, we cannot soar ; 

But we have feet to scale and climb 

By slow degrees, by more and more, 

The cloudy summits of our time. 

Longfellow. 

Which is the real hereditary sin of humanity ? Do you imagine that 
I shall say pride, or luxury, or ambition 1 No ! I shall say indolence. 
He who conquers that can conquer all. 

Problem XXVI. Vividly conceive the ideas and situation of some 
animated extract, and read it so as to move another. 

Ye sons of Freedom, wake to glory ! 

Hark ! hark ! what myriads bid ye rise ! 
Your children, wives, and graudsires hoary, 

Behold their tears and hear their cries. 

Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar: - 
To sea ! to sea ! the calm is o'er. 



Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may ; 
I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play. 
In yon straight path a thousand may well be stopped by three ; 
Now who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me ? 

Macaulay. 



280 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Come, brothers ! let me name a spell shall rouse your souls again, 

And send the old blood bounding free through pulse, and heart, and vein ! 

Call back the days of bygone years — be young and strong once more ; 

Think yonder stream, so stark and red, is one we 've crossed before. . . . 

Stayed we behind, that glorious day, for roaring flood or linn ? 

The soul of Graeme is with us still — now, brothers ! will ye in ? 

Aytoun. 

Problem XXVII. Appeal to men's spiritual nature, and endeavor to 
awaken nobler thoughts, feeling, or choice ideals. 

Be patient ! oh, be patient ! though yet our hopes are green, 
The harvest-fields of freedom shall be crowned with sunny sheen. 

Linton. 

Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies 

In other men, sleeping, but never dead, 

Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. 

Lowell. 



To thine own self be true, and keep thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil ; 
Press on ! and thou shalt surely reap a heavenly harvest for thy toil. 

Park Benjamin. 

Fight on, thou brave true heart, and falter not, through dark for- 
tune and through bright. The cause thou tightest for, so far as it is 
true, no further, yet precisely so far, is very sure of victory. The false- 
hood alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished, as it ought to be : 
but the truth of it is part of Nature's own laws, co-operates with the 
World's eternal tendencies, and cannot be conquered. 

Carlyle. 

Problem XXVIII. Take the same extract, and give it in many ways, 
so as to make men think, to move them, to awaken spiritual feeling, to 
please, reprove, or warn. 

Not only around our infancy 

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; 

Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 

We Sinais climb, and know it not. 

Lowell. 



The quality of mercy is not strain'd ; 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath ; it is twice bless'd ; 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 
'T is mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown : 
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 



PURPOSES IN EXPRESSION. 281 

The attribute to awe and majesty, 

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings : 

But mercy is above this sceptred sway ; 

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings : 

It is an attribute of God himself : 

And earthly power doth then show likest God's, 

"When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this, — 

That in the course of justice, none of us 

Should see salvation ; we do pray for mercy ; 

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 

The deeds of mercy. 

Merchant of Venice. 

Problem XXIX. Read some passage with transitions of purpose, so 
as to suggest the variation. 

Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew ; and, gentle lady, deign to stay : 
Rest thee in Castle Raveusheuch, nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. 



Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. 
If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind ; 
and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character. 



Kent. Fare thee well, king : sith thus thou wilt appear, 
Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here. 
[To Cordelia.] The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, 
That justly think'st, and has most rightly said ! 
[To the Sisters.] And your large speeches may your deeds approve, 
That good effects may spring from words of love. 
Thus Kent, princes, bids you all adieu ; 
He '11 shape his old course in a country new. 



Shakespeare. 



ADAM AND ORLANDO. 

Orlando. "Who 's there ? 

Adam. What, my young master ? — my gentle master ! 
my sweet master ! you memory 
Of old Sir Rowland ! why, what make you here ? 
Why are you virtuous ? Why do people love you ? 
And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant ? 
Why would you be so fond to overcome 
The bony priser of the humorous duke ? 
Your praise is come too swiftly home before you. 
Know you not, master, to some kind of men 
Their graces serve them but as enemies ? 
No more do yours : your virtues, gentle master, 



282 



ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 



Are sanctified and holy traitors to you. 

Oh, what a world is this, when what is comely 

Envenoms him that bears it ! 

Orl. Why, what 's the matter ? 

Adam. unhappy youth, 

Come not within these doors ; within this roof 
The enemy of all your graces lives. 
Your brother — (no, no brother ; yet the son — 
Yet not the son — I will not call him son 
Of him I was about to call his father), — 
Hath heard your praises ; and this night he means 
To burn the lodging where you used to lie, 
And you within it : if he fail of that, 
He will have other means to cut you off : 
I overheard him, and his practices. 
This is no place ; this house is but a butchery : 
Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it. 

Orl. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go ? 

Adam. No matter whither, so you come not here. 

Orl. What ! wouldst thou have me go and beg my food ? 
Or with a base and boist'rous sword enforce 
A thievish living on the common road ? , 
This I must do, or know not what to do : 
Yet this I will not do, do how I can ; 
I rather will subject me to the malice 
Of a diverted blood, and bloody brother. 

Adam. But do not so. I have five hundred crowns, 
The thrifty hire I saved under your father, 
Which I did store, to be my foster-nurse 
When service should in my old limbs lie lame, 
And unregarded age in corners thrown : 
Take that ; and He that doth the ravens feed, 
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, 
Be comfort to my age ! Here is the gold ; 
All this I give you. Let me be your servant : 
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty ; 
For in my youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, 
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo 
The means of weakness and debility ; 
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
Frosty, but kindly : let rae go with you ; 
I '11 do the service of a younger man 
In all your business and necessities. 



FORMS OF THE DRAMATIC. 283 

Orl. good old man, how well in thee appears 
The constant service of the antique world, 
When service sweat for duty, not for meed ! 
Thou art not for the fashion of these times, 
"Where none will sweat hut for promotion ; 
And having that, do choke their service up 
Even with the having : it is not so with thee. 
But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree, 
That cannot so much as a hlossom yield, 
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. 
But come thy ways ; we '11 go along together ; 
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent, 
We '11 light upon some settled low content. 

Adam. Master, go on, and I will follow thee, 

To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. — 

From seventeen years, till now almost fourscore, 

Here lived I, but now live here no more. 

At seventeen years many their fortunes seek ; 

But at fourscore it is too late a week ; 

Yet fortune cannot recompense me better 

Than to die well, and not my master's debtor. 

Shakespeare. 



XL. FORMS OF THE DRAMATIC. 

It has been shown that whatever is concerned with the revelation 
of character or the interpretation of the motives of men, or the 
manifestation of the life of the movement of thought and passion, 
is dramatic. The nature of the dramatic will be made still clearer 
by the study of some of its forms as embodied in literature. 

The highest form of dramatic art deals with the loftiest emotions, 
situations, and motives of the human soul. The highest form of 
the drama deals with the destiny of man, and the problem of suffer- 
ing. That suffering is one of the chief means of education in the 
school of life cannot be doubted. Whether it is the result of a man's 
own sin, or of the mistakes of others, the chief means for the 
development and refining of the human soul is by means of pain. 
According to the common theory of religion, the race is to be 
redeemed and saved by the Divine sharing in man's pain. 

Tragedy, the highest form of the drama, is the artistic represen- 
tation of suffering. In tragedy, human endeavor attains its aims 



284 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

through death. Seemingly, it is the drama of failure, but there 
is something of victory at the heart; it is ever the overcoming of 
suffering by the heroism of the human soul. 

The struggle to explain tragedy has exercised great minds from 
the time of the Greeks. That in its noblest form it has added to 
the refining influences was first proved by Aristotle in his theory 
called the "catharsis of emotion." The chief difference between 
comedy and tragedy is that the noblest tragedy achieves its vic- 
tory through death, while comedy secures it by endeavor or by a 
fortuitous concurrence of circumstances. Comedy is victory in 
'time; tragedy shows us the struggle, but conceals the victory as 
part of the sublime mystery of existence; thus our conceptions 
of tragedy will depend upon our theory of life, our opinion as to 
the destiny of the race, or the»individual. Some of the tragedies 
of the Greeks seem to have no element of victory, except in the 
heroic conquest of the fear of death. 

Tragedy is always dignified and noble. It is serious, though 
humorous elements may be woven into it by a Shakespeare. This 
is done for contrast, to heighten the sublime effect. The chief 
characteristics of tragedy are depth, intense simplicity, and dig- 
nity; poise, balance, and temperance ; freedom from extravagance 
and exaggeration. The element of exhibition is absent; the 
whole appeal is to the mind. 

Next to tragedy the highest form of dramatic art is comedy. In 
our country the word is loosely used, and anything ludicrous 
is called comedy. Comedy sees human experiences in their hope- 
ful aspect. From the first note in tragedy, we feel the impossi- 
bility of avoiding the catastrophe ; but in comedy from the outset 
there is a feeling of hope and expectation. We feel that there is 
not so much sin as misunderstanding and mistake, and that time 
will make everything clear. It is more playful and free, lacking 
something of the sublime movement of tragedy. 

One of the greatest comedies ever written is Goldsmith's " She 
Stoops to Conquer." The timid young man, fearful of society, in 
awe of the lady to whom he comes to pay his court, in dread of 
entering the house of her father, is directed to it as to an inn 
where he meets his proposed and dreaded father-in-law, and takes 



FORMS OF THE DRAMATIC. 285 

him for an inn-keeper, and the maiden of whom he is so fearful 
for a bar-maid. The audience and all the characters upon the 
stage are in the secret, and we expect every moment that his 
eyes will be opened. 

A more serious form of comedy represents sin which is thwarted, 
as in " Much Ado about Nothing." In Shakespeare if any char- 
acter is killed the play is a tragedy, otherwise it is a comedy. 
" Cymbeline " is full of comic elements, but since Cloten is killed, 
though everybody wants to see him die, it is reckoned a tragedy ; 
yet it is essentially a comedy, because all sins and mistakes are 
rectified, and the end of the play causes joy and exaltation, while 
the depth of sympathy and feeling of reverent awe as to the great 
mysteries of life are kept in the background. 

Is the " Merchant of Venice " a comedy or a tragedy ? No one 
is killed, so this easy method of classification ranks it as a comedy, 
yet the feeling at the exit of old Shylock is intensely tragic. In 
fact, it is impossible to draw the line rigidly between comedy and 
tragedy. Both elements are found in the " Merchant of Venice ; " 
and in all comedies, especially in Shakespeare's best, there is a 
touch of tragic emotion. Somewhere we feel something of the 
deep mystery of human failure and human suffering, and in most 
of them there is some character which arouses the deepest sym- 
pathy with ' suffering. 

A lower form of the dramatic is farce. In comedy the out- 
come of joy depends mainly upon character. Circumstances and 
situation have something to do with it, but the centre of our inter- 
est is in the working of the mind. In farce, the characters are 
secondary to the situations. Everything is exaggerated and ex- 
travagant in farce. The subject of farce is generally the lower 
aspects of life; the characters are undignified and abnormal. 
Tragedy deals with human character, its sins and sufferings; 
comedy with character in relation to mistakes and errors, which 
will be corrected by time. We study the peculiarities of men, 
but we feel continually the bright side of life, that all things are 
working together for good. In farce we deal with people's foibles 
and weaknesses, but the mistakes are chiefly due to circumstances 
and not to peculiarities of character. In tragedy the rhythm is 



286 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

dignified, every movement simple, every tone of the voice chas- 
tened by the mystery of death. In comedy, everything reveals 
character;, the appeal is still to the imagination, to the mind. In 
farce the appeal is often to the eye ; no deep thought is required ; 
no imagination nor sympathy is awakened. In comedy we laugh 
with men, in farce we laugh at them. 

Farces are nearly always short. Their subject is but the odd 
moments of life. Comedy and tragedy unfold deep plots, and 
give us the two sides of the great struggle of the human soul in 
time ; they are the histrionic expression of History, " whose home 
is the bosom of God, and whose voice is the harmony of the 
world." In comedy we find the superiority of nature to human 
conventionalities, but in farce we move freely and easily amid the 
constrictions of worldly conventionalities without being made 
free from them. Comedy deals with the probable, farce with the 
improbable. Comedy never steps beyond the bounds of possibil- 
ities ; farce is a law to itself, and its extravagant exaggerations and 
impossibilities are often its chief elements. 

The lowest form of the drama is the burlesque. Burlesque 
may be high or low. Sometimes, very often in fact, it ranks 
above farce, but it is a lower form of art. Burlesque deals with 
caricature. It shows men their weaknesses, reveals to them 
those things of which they are unconscious. In a theatre in 
London in the old days, an actress appeared in a hat of rather an 
unusual size. In another theatre a burlesque actress brings forth 
the same hat, but as big as a wagon wheel. The audience recog- 
nized the caricature, recognized the weakness of which it was an 
exaggeration, and this was the source of the pleasure. 

The motive of burlesque is sometimes higher than farce. It 
deals with mistakes and evils, and may have a wholesome effect. 
Frequently it fulfils Shakespeare's conception of the drama, in- 
asmuch as it " holds a mirror up to nature ; " and while it may 
not as comedy show virtue her own feature, it does frequently 
show " scorn her own image." Hence, it has its use, though it 
may not rise to the dignity of comedy and tragedy, which can 
show " the very age and body of the time, its form and presence." 

Burlesque is often directed against forms of expression, and 



FORMS OF THE DRAMATIC. 287 

becomes the means in the realm of dramatic art of discovering the 
un-ideal, and indirectly of awakening a conception of the ideal. 
It is concerned with the abnormal, but its higher forms do not 
deal with the abnormal merely for its own sake : they bring the 
abnormal into direct contrast and opposition with the normal. 

In comedy or tragedy all abnormal characters are in opposition 
to normal ones. This is not true in farce or burlesque, unless 
indirectly. Burlesque is a negative form of dramatic art, super- 
ficial, flippant, and capable of abuse, and occupies a low place, 
because it lacks seriousness. 

In all high comedy or tragedy there is direct reference to the 
ideal. Wherever abnormal characters are introduced in Shake- 
speare, they are introduced for a specific purpose in relation to the 
ideal characters in the play. At first thought, Sir Toby, Sir An- 
drew Aguecheek, Maria, the Fool, and Malvolio in " Twelfth 
Night " are farcical characters, and if alone they certainly would 
be ; but they are not alone. They reflect the weakness and follies 
of their superiors ; they illustrate the same theme in a lower strata 
of society. Malvolio's self-love, his egotistical unconsciousness of 
his weakness, is an exaggerated and extravagant embodiment of 
the same fault in the Duke. 

A failure on the part of many public readers to realize the dif- 
ference between the high and the low in art has worked great 
harm. Many think that because they deal with death they are 
concerned with tragedy. Even " Hamlet " can be so rendered as 
to appear to be a melodrama, or even a farce. Many amateur 
performances of tragedy would be ludicrous if it were not for a 
feeling of sorrow at the unconscious degradation of art. 

Public readers in their abridgment of plays for public presen- 
tation are apt to eliminate too much the normal characters. 
While people do not laugh at the normal characters, yet their 
presence makes the abnormal characters more pleasing because of 
their opposition to the normal. 

In the arrangement of a program there should be variety. 
Professor Monroe used to say that when he had been sent for by 
some committee to read, they would beg him to give only comic 
selections; but he would ask them, for his own sake, to allow 



288 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

him to give something from Shakespeare, and he invariably re- 
ceived more commendation from an ordinary audience for that 
than for anything else. The managers of a performance hardly 
realize what is going on ; they think if the audience are shouting 
with laughter that they are being pleased. But the deepest 
pleasure in life does not call for extravagant laughter. Deep and 
noble joy, to use a paradox, is serious. Joy may cause tears as 
well as sorrow; at any rate, the law of rhythm must always be 
obeyed. Shakespeare is himself the highest example of obedience 
to this great law. 

In some sense it is impossible to define the difference between 
the high and the low in dramatic art. It is a question of taste, 
and taste is something which results from direct exercise and con- 
templation. The best method, therefore, for the student is to 
exercise himself directly in the different forms of the dramatic for 
the development of his own taste, for the awakening of imagina- 
tion and sympathy and the higher elements of true dramatic 
instinct. 

All forms of the drama have their place. Students who are 
stiff and constrained need farce and burlesque for the development 
of abandon. Even the person who is highest in the ability to 
control tragic emotion must work in the realm of comedy, lest he 
lose the nearness of the sublime to the ridiculous. The great 
writers of comedy have nearly always been masters of pathos, 
possibly because without a sense of the humorous, pathos becomes 
bathos. 

A few simple suggestions should be remembered. The higher 
the dramatic art, the more will assimilation predominate; the 
lower it is, the greater the amount of imitation. The high calls 
for imagination, sympathy, and suggestion; the low, for sensation 
and exhibition. The high demands intensity, depth of feeling, 
and self-control; the low, extravagance and exaggeration. The 
high requires delicacy, subtlety, and refinement; the low, carica- 
ture and extravagance. 

It is good practice for every student to take some simple poem, 
and read it with different degrees of dignity. " The Low Backed 
Car," for example, I have heard rendered as a noble and ideal 



FORMS OF THE DRAMATIC. 289 

lyric, though with a grotesque element; and I have also heard it 
made farcical and coarse. High art is not wholly dependent upon 
the subject. A great theme may be degraded by bad art, and a 
very simple theme elevated by noble rendering. " Sally in our 
Alley " and " Black-eyed Susan " deal with low forms of charac- 
ter; but their simplicity, imagination, and sympathetic suggestive- 
ness make them worthy to be included in the most refined collection 
of lyrics. 

Is " 'Twixt Axe and Crown " part of a melodrama or a 
tragedy ? 

Problem XXX. Select from Shakespeare, or other dramatic authors, 
soliloquies and dialogues to illustrate farce, comedy, and tragedy ; also 
selections of various kinds, and render them in contrast according to their 
artistic character. 

"Oh, yes ! Oh, yes ! Oh, yes ! ding-dong ! " The bellman's voice is loud 
and strong ; so is his bell : " Oh, yes ! ding-dong ! " He wears a coat with 
golden lace ; see how the people of the place come running to hear what the 
bellman says ! " Oh, yes ! Sir Nicholas Hildebrand has just returned from 
the Holy Land, and freely offers his heart and hand — Oh, yes ! Oh, yes ! 
Oh, yes ! ding-dong ! " All the women hurry along, maids and widows, a clat- 
tering throng. " Oh, sir, you are hard to understand ! To whom does he offer 
his heart and hand ? Explain your meaning, we do command ! " " Oh, yes ! 
ding-dong ! you shall understand ! Oh, yes ! Sir Nicholas Hildebrand invites 
the ladies of this land to feast with him, in his castle strong, this very day at 
three. Ding-dong ! Oh, yes ! Oh, yes ! Oh, yes, ding-dong ! " Then all the 
women went off to dress, Mary, Margaret, Bridget, Bess, Patty, and more than 
I can guess. They powdered their hair with golden dust, and bought new 
ribbons — they said they must — but none of them painted, we will trust. 
Long before the time arrives, all the women that could be wives are dressed 
within an inch of their lives. ' Cicely and The Bears. 

" I speak not to implore your grace, well know I for one minute's space 
successless might I sue : nor do I speak your prayers to gain ; for if a death 
of lingering pain, to cleanse my sins, be penance vain, vain are your masses 
too. — I listen'd to a traitor's tale, I left the convent and the veil ; for three 
long years I bow'd my pride, a horse-boy in his train to ride ; and well my 
folly's meed he gave, who forfeited, to be his slave, all here, and all beyond 
the grave. — He saw young Clara's face more fair, he knew her of broad lands 
the heir, forgot his vows, his faith foreswore, and Constance was belov'd no 
more. — 'T is an old tale, and often told ; but did my fate and wish agree, 
ne'er had been read, in story old, of maiden true betray'd for gold, that 

19 



290 



ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 



loved, or was avenged, like me ! . . . Now, men of death, work forth your will, 
for I can suffer, and be still ; and come he slow, or come he fast, it is but 
Death who comes at last." Fix'd was her look, and stern her air : back from 
her shoulders streamed her hair ; the locks, that wont her brow to shade, 
stared up erectly from her head. . . . 

"Sister, let thy sorrows cease ; sinful brother, part in peace ! " From that 
dire dungeon, place of doom, of execution too, and tomb, paced forth the 
judges three ; sorrow it were, and shame, to tell the butcher-work that there 
befell, when they had glided from the cell of sin and misery. An hundred 
winding steps convey that conclave to the upper day ; but, ere they breathed 
the fresher air, they heard the shriek ings of despair, and many a stifled 
groan : with speed their upward way they take, (such speed as age and fear can 
make, ) and cross'd themselves for terror's sake, and hurried, tottering on. 

Marmion. Scott. 

Falstaff. I call thee coward ! I '11 see thee hanged ere I call thee coward ; 
but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You 
are straight enough in the shoulders ; you care not who sees your back. 
Call you that backing of your friends ? A plague upon such backing ! 

Henry IV. Shakespeare. 



'TWIXT AXE AND CROWN. 

Elizabeth. Methinks I see my England, like the eagle, 
Pruning her unchained wing for freer flight, 
Fuller in focus of the glorious sun 
Than e'er she flew till now. Great deeds, great words, 
That make great deeds still greater ! Poesy 
Fired with new life ; her soldiers conquering, 
Her sailors braving unknown seas, to plant 
The germ of a new England in the West — 
Acorn, it may be, of a daughter oak, 
Broader and stronger than the parent tree ! 
But I speak wildly, yet speak what I think, 
As friend may speak to friend, and not be chidden. 

Paget. Ashes of age are gray upon my head. 
Methought they had smothered my heart's fires as well : 
But something glows beneath them, hearing you. 
May Heaven speed the good time, and guard you, madam, 
To make our England great and glorious 
In man's deeds, as your words. For what 't is now 
I lay most charge upon the Spanish match. 
Pray Heaven your Highness lend no ear to those 
That work on you to wed a foreign prince. 

Eliz. Elizabeth mates not — or she mates in England. 
I have a vow for that. 



FORMS OF THE DRAMATIC. 291 

Paget. Heaven grant you keep it, 

And me to bless your mating, when it come. 
And now, farewell, sweet lady. I will take 
Much comfort to our friends from this good news 
Of your fair health and firm fix'd resolution. 

[He bows, kisses her hand, and exit. 

Eliz. Fare you well ! 

Ah, Courtenay, he dreams not that 't is love's vow 
I hold, not policy's ! Oh, my true lord, 
How heavy drags the time, waiting for thee ! 
Three whole months, and no tidings ! I am sick 
Of longing for his letter — but this audience 
Of Master Renard. I see in his coming 
111 omen to my peace ; but I am armed, 
I think, against him, and all enemies, 
"With love and loyalty for talisman. [Enter Renard and three of his suite. 

Renard. [Kneeling.] Most gracious lady ! — . . . 
There 's nothing stands between the crown and you 
But a few sad hours of a sick Queen's life — 
Which, let 's pray, may be mercifully shortened ! 
It is that crown Philip would help you bear 
"With strength of policy and stay of love. 

Eliz. [ With bitter irony."] Even such love as he has showed my sister, 
Turning from her untended bed of death 

With this unnatural tender of his hand ! [ With contempt, rising to wrath. 
Say, did you take me for a fool or beast ? 
A monster without brains or without heart ? 
To come to me — you, and your worthy master, 
With offers so accursed, and gifts so vile ! 
Out of my sight, lest I forget my sex 
And strike thee ! 

Ren. Have a care, my passionate madam. 

The Queen still lives, and a Queen's dying arm 
Can strike, when others guide. Even now a warrant 
Of treason hangs suspended o'er your head. 

Eliz. Treason ! 

Ren. Aye, treason. Courtenay is in England — 
Has raised all Suffolk, in your name and his. 
His treason is your treason ; the first stroke 
That Courtenay strikes finds echo in the fall 
Of your head on the scaffold ! 

Eliz. So be it ! 

When Courtenay strikes that blow, let my head fall. 
My life upon his loyalty ! 



292 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Ren. You have staked 

And lost ! "Without there ! [One of his suite advances. 

This to Lord Chandos ! [Gives warrant.'] . . . [Enter Sussex. 

Eliz. My Lord of Sussex ! [Sussex kneels. 

Rise, my good lord ! Your face of gloom but tells 
What we have heard already — the Queen 's dead. 

Sussex. The Queen ne'er dies, and so long live the Queen ! 

Eliz. You come in time ; an hour, and you had met us, 
Escorted to the tower. 

Sussex. The Tower ? 

Eliz. For treason — 

In aiding and abetting Edward Courtenay, 
Who, Master Renard late declared, has landed 
And risen in arms in Suffolk. 

Sussex. So 't was bruited. 

Eliz. But 't is not true ? 

Sussex. No. 'T was one Thomas Cleobury, ' 

Who took my Lord of Devonshire's arms and title. 
His levies are dispersed, and himself ta'en. 

Eliz. Ha ! said I not ? Courtenay was not in England ! 
See a post straight dispatched to him at Padua. 
We would he first had news of our accession. 

Sussex. My liege, no post can reach him now ! 

Eliz. What mean you ? 

Sussex. He is dead. 

Eliz. Dead ! Nay, my Lord, 

Here 's too much death : one death that crowns a queen, 
And one that robs a woman's heart of more 
Than crowns can give. Dead ! When ? Where ? tell me all. 

Sussex. He died at Padua. His servants brought 
The tidings to the court just as I left. 

Eliz. Dead ! Was there naught — no word for me — no token ? 

Sussex. Pardon, madam. 

This ring and letter — [Holds them out. 

Eliz. [Passionately grasping them.] And thou keep'st them from me, 
And let 'st me prate and pule when I might hold 
Something he has touched, and breathed upon, 

And warmed with his last breath of dying love ! [Looking at the letter. 

True friend ! lost lord ! sole love ! 't is thy dear hand ; 
And these blurred spots are tears methinks — or kisses. 
Thus let me put my tears and kisses to them. [Kisses letter. 

Thus only are we fated to be joined. 

[Reads.] Dear love and lady, — When thou read'st these lines 
The hand that scarce can trace them will be cold. 



MONOLOGUES. 293 

My last breath went to pray all blessings on thee : 
For thee my heart beat, till it beat no more. 
They that severed ha ads have wedded souls : 
We are one now and forever — aye, one now — 

And ever — and no separation more ! [Sinks into chair. Burst of trumpets. 

What 's that ? [Enter Harrington. 

Harrington. The Lords of the Council and the great ones 
Of the City come to hail their gracious Queen Elizabeth. 

Eliz. [Sadly. ] — What love is left to me now 
But their love ? What to live for but to make 
Them happier than their Queen can ever be. [Trumpets. Enter procession. 

Omnes [Kneeling]. Long live Elizabeth ! Long live the Queen ! 
Eliz. [Rising with great emotion — lays her hand upon the crown.] 
Great King of Kings ! 't is thou hast willed it me. 

Guide me that I may wear it, by thy will. [Trumpets and cheering. 

Taylor, 

XII. MONOLOGUES. 

Among the many forms of the dramatic in literature, one of the 
latest to be developed is the monologue, a kind of subjective drama. 
Only one character speaks, but he must so express his ideas as to 
reveal not only his own character, but that of the person to whom 
he is speaking, and sometimes the character of which he is speak- 
ing, as well as to convey clearly his meaning. 

The person who renders the monologue must speak " in charac- 
ter," or give it with a definite conception of the character that 
speaks. The monologue is just as dramatic as the play, and calls 
for just as definite conception of character. The monologue, how- 
ever, differs from the play; it is more subjective; there is no 
scenery ; — the situation must be created by the imagination, and 
the imagination, of course, must penetrate to the deepest motives. 

It is an important form of the dramatic for study, because it calls 
for definite thinking, great activity of the imagination, and deep 
insight into character. 

In order to understand the monologue, let us compare it with 
soliloquy. Soliloquy is simply thinking aloud. A man does not 
exactly talk to himself, which in some of its forms might become a 
monologue. In soliloquy the man simply reveals by words the 
current of the thought that dominates him. Shakespeare is the 



294 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

only master of this form of writing. In the hands of others it is 
apt to degenerate into mere chaotic wandering, or rise into a kind 
of personal monologue or declamation. 

Monologue is not oratory nor a speech spoken to an audience ; it 
is nearly always spoken to one individual. It is an artistic study 
of the relation of two minds, of the influence of the one over the 
other. 

A monologue requires careful and thorough study. It cannot 
be read like a narrative, which explains itself as it proceeds. The 
one who renders a monologue must read it over to get a general 
conception of it. In fact, before one can render a monologue, he 
must settle first who speaks, and form an adequate conception of the 
peculiarities of the character. He must also form a picture of the 
situation by which the character is surrounded. Next, he must 
understand to whom the character speaks; sometimes he must 
understand of whom he speaks; last of all, he must understand 
thoroughly the thought that is to be conveyed. All these must be 
brought into harmonious co-ordination before there can be any true 
rendering of the monologue. 

Usually one of these elements predominates ; in some cases the 
character to whom the man speaks is the most important ; in others, 
there is no hint of the person to whom he speaks; while the per- 
son of whom he speaks is as important as the speaker in Brown- 
ing's " My Last Duchess " or his " Spanish Cloister. " 

The monologue has become an important form of art, on account 
of the tendency of men in our day to conceal their emotions. We 
no longer see upon the street such dramatic scenes as Shakespeare 
saw. The real struggle of human life, the real battle, has been 
made in the depths of each man's soul. Hence, dramatic art or 
the interpretation of human character must in some way interpret 
this struggle. 

There is an objection to monologues on account of the fact that 
they are obscure, but by following the suggestions made, when the 
reader can first satisfactorily answer the questions, who, where, to 
whom, or of whom, and what, many of the most difficult mono- 
logues, such as those by Browning, become clear and simple. Their 
difficulty, in short, is chiefly on account of their dramatic character. 



MONOLOGUES. 295 

There are points in which the monologue is superior to the drama. 
It can touch upon certain aspects and problems of human life which 
are not possible in the play. Again, too much of the modern stage 
is simply concerned with make-ups and various exhibitions and 
spectacular representations which are totally antagonistic to all true 
dramatic art. This is more or less impossible in the monologue. 

Students should arrange and abridge monologues and short stories 
from many sources, and dramatize and present scenes from novels, 
as well as recite and act scenes from tragedies, comedies, farces, 
and burlesques, so as to be able to understand clearly the distinction 
between every form and degree of dramatic expression. 

A TALE. 

What a pretty tale you told me once upon a time — 

Said you found it somewhere (scold me !) was it prose or was it rhyme, 

Greek or Latin ? Greek, you said, while your shoulder propped my head. 

Anyhow there 's no forgetting this much if no more, 

That a poet (pray, no petting ! ) yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 

Went where suchlike used to go, singing for a prize, you know. 

Well, he had to sing, nor merely sing but play the lyre ; 

Playing was important clearly quite as singing : I desire, 

Sir, you keep the fact in mind for a purpose that 's behind. 

There stood he, while deep attention held the judges round, 

— Judges able, I should mention, to detect the slightest sound 

Sung or played amiss : such ears had old judges, it appears ! 

None the less, he sang out boldly, played in time and tune, 

Till the judges, weighing coldly each note's worth, seemed, late or soon, 

Sure to smile " In vain one tries picking faults out : take the prize ! " 

When, a mischief ! Were they seven strings the lyre possessed ? 

Oh, and afterwards eleven, thank you ! Well, sir, — who had guessed 

Such ill-luck in store ? — it happed one of those same seven strings snapped. 

All was lost, then ! No ! a cricket (what " cicada" ? Pooh ! ) 

— Some mad thing that left its thicket for mere love of music — flew 

With its little heart on fire, lighted on the crippled lyre. 

So that when (Ah joy !) our singer for his truant string 

Feels with disconcerted finger, what does cricket else but fling 

Fiery heart forth, sound the note wanted by the throbbing throat ? 

Ay and, ever to the ending, cricket chirps at need, 

Executes the hand's intending, promptly, perfectly, — indeed 

Saves the singer from defeat with her chirrup low and sweet. 

Till, at ending, all the judges cry with one assent 

" Take the prize — a prize who grudges such a voice and instrument ? 

Why, we took your lyre for harp, so it shrilled us forth F sharp ! " 



296 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Did the conqueror spurn the creature, once its service done ? 

That 's no such uncommon feature in the case when Music's son 

Finds his Lotte's power too spent for aiding soul-development. 

No ! This other, on returning homeward, prize in hand, 

Satisfied his bosom's yearning : (sir, I hope you understand ! ) 

— Said, " Some record there must be of this cricket's help to me ! " 

So, he made himself a statue : marble stood, life-size ; 

On the lyre, he pointed at you, perched his partner in the prize ; 

Never more apart you found her, he throned, from him, she crowned. 

That 's the tale : its application ? Somebody I know 

Hopes one day for reputation through his poetry that 's — Oh, 

All so learned and so wise, and deserving of a prize ! 

If he gains one, will some ticket, when his statue 's built, 

Tell the gazer, " T was a cricket helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt 

Sweet and low, when strength usurped softness' place i' the scale, she chirped ? 

For as victory was nighest, while I sang and played, — 

With my lyre at lowest, highest, right alike, — one string that made 

' Love ' sound soft was snapt in twain, never to be heard again, — 

Had not a kind cricket fluttered, perched upon the place 

Vacant left, and duly uttered ',Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass 

Asked the treble to atone for its somewhat sombre drone." 

But you don't know music ! Wherefore keep on casting pearls 

To a — poet ! All I care for is — to tell him that a girl's 

"Love" comes aptlyin when gruff grows his singing. (There, enough!) 

Browning. 



INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. 
You know, we French stormed Eatisbon : a mile or so away 
On a little mound, Napoleon stood on our storming-day ; 
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, legs wide, arms locked behind, 
As if to balance the prone brow oppressive with its mind. 

Just as perhaps he mused, " My plans that soar, to earth may fall, 

Let once my army-leader Lannes waver at yonder wall — " 

Out 'twixt the battery smokes there flew a rider, bound on bound 

Full-galloping ; nor bridle drew until he reached the mound. 

Then off there flung in smiling joy, and held himself erect. 

By just his horse's mane, a boy : you hardly could suspect — 

(So tight he kept his lips compressed, scarce any blood came through) 

You looked twice ere you saw his breast was all but shot in two. 

" Well," cried he, " Emperor, by God's grace we 've got you Eatisbon ! 

The Marshal 's in the market-place, and you '11 be there anon 

To see your flag-bird flap his vans where I, to heart's desire, 

Perched him ! " The chief's eye flashed; his plans soared up again like fire. 



MEANS OF REVEALING TRANSITIONS. 297 

The chiefs eye flashed ; but presently softened itself, as sheathes 

A film the mother-eagle's eye when her bruised eaglet breathes ; 

" You 're wounded ! " — " Nay," the soldier's pride touched to the quick, he 

said: 
** I 'm killed, Sire ! " And his chief beside, smiling the boy fell dead. 

Browning. 



XLH. MEANS OF BEVEALING TRANSITIONS. 

How should the voice reveal changes in situation, relation, mental 
attitude, purpose, or feeling? In general, any such change will 
call for some change in voice or body, and whenever any change in 
voice or body is the direct result of a change in thought or feel- 
ing, we have expression. Only in proportion to the eradication 
of meaningless changes, or changes which are merely physical or 
nervous, will expression be noble. 

When we seek for the nature and number of the modulations of 
voice which express the dramatic changes in thought and feeling, 
conceptions of character, and sympathetic relationship, they seem 
as inadequate as was the case with imagination. We have only 
pause, change of pitch, change of inflection, change in the color 
or texture of the voice, change of rhythmic movement, and the 
like. But though these changes are few in number and slight in 
character, we find them sufficient. Not only this, but we find 
also that the more subtle the changes of voice, the more beautiful 
and exalted will be the expression. In fact, the means adopted in 
any art seem totally inadequate to accomplish the effect. Take, for 
example, painting. How few are the colors in the noblest painting, 
and yet what depth of color is suggested! A painter who uses a 
great number of colors loses all power to suggest color, as a lead- 
ing English painter once said: "One color is gold; two, silver; 
three, lead." We stand close to one of the portraits of Stuart, 
and there seems to be nothing but a very thin meaningless layer 
of pigment; move farther away, and the very subtlest expression 
of the eye lives with absolute fidelity. 

In vocal expression, especially, there is great danger of exag- 
geration. The words convey the story ; the changes of voice and 
body simply give the subtle feeling and relationship of the 



298 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

speaker. Feeling cannot be conveyed. Only a hint of the imag- 
ination of another that will awaken the same faculties is needed, 
and the more delicately given the better. Exaggerated changes 
in voice and body call the attention of the auditor to the vocal 
actions themselves, and fail to reveal the mental changes in the 
continuity of thought and emotion. Where all attention is 
directed to the manner, expression is destroyed and not aided. 
All transitions should be such as will simply stimulate the mind 
to think and feel in a natural sequence. Hence, imitation or 
mechanical exaggeration may interrupt and break this continuity, 
while the simplest change or transition may stimulate it. In 
the practice of transitions, therefore, changes should be as subtle 
and definite as possible, and the variety of these changes simple 
and genuine as in nature. 

One temptation is to adopt changes which can be executed by 
mechanical manipulation of the voice. This arises from a lack 
of faith in the power of the imagination and feeling to cause 
expression, or in the flexibility of the voice to respond to them. 
As the worst of all faults is felt to be monotony, and as every 
speaker, reader, or actor fears tameness, there is a natural dis- 
position to exaggerate variations at first and adopt mechanical 
and imitative expedients. The chief cause of monotony, however, 
is a neutral habit of mind, which reveals itself in an inability to 
group situations, or in merely abstract thinking. Hence, the 
remedy is to think genuinely each idea, to conceive individually 
each situation, and to realize each point of view, and to mani- 
fest each mental and emotional change as simply and naturally 
as possible. 

Inflection shows the relationship of ideas, and the processes of 
thinking them. Inflections are present in proportion to the re- 
thinking of the ideas by the reader or speaker at the time 
he speaks. The other modes of revealing transitions are more 
imaginative or emotional. Among these, pause is very essential, 
because a pause indicates that the mind is undergoing a change 
and mus't have sufficient time to create the new situation or idea 
and to give up to it. So there can hardly be a transition of any 
kind without pause. 



MEANS OF REVEALING TRANSITIONS. 299 

Changes of pitch always go with pauses. A pause without 
change of pitch is a hesitation. The change of pitch is the most 
natural hint of the fact that the mind has a new idea or situation, 
or has adopted a new point of view. When extreme, it shows that 
a great deal has happened. If we keep on the same pitch and make 
no pause in reading these lines, we fail to realize the significance 
of the words, at least, till after they are spoken ; but an extreme 
change of pitch with a pause, change of texture and tone-color 
shows a realization of what has happened. 

Charge ! Chester, charge ! On ! Stanley, on .! 
Were the last words of Marmion. 

Changes in the color of the voice are extremely subtle, and 
reveal the nature of the feeling itself. Every emotion has a 
distinct effect upon the resonance of the voice, and a distinct texture 
or color; tone-color, or the emotional modulation of resonance, is 
one of the most important of all means for the manifestation of 
transitions of delicate feeling. The modulation of texture has a 
distinct importance in dramatic expression. It has the same 
relation to tone-color that a bearing has to an attitude. It 
expresses deeper, more permanent conditions ; it gives the charac- 
ter or attitudes of the character, while tone-color manifests more 
the changes in feeling in response to successive ideas. For 
example, a reader with a proper conception of each character will 
have different textures for Antonio and for Shy lock ; but this is 
not mechanical manipulation, but a natural expression; hence, 
each emotion felt by either character has a specific color. Texture 
is simply a deeper modulation, which, when natural, does not inter- 
fere with the modulation of tone-color. It is just here that assimi- 
lative methods show their infinite superiority to imitative methods. 

Shylock. Jailer, look to him ; — tell not me of mercy : — 
This is the fool that lent out money gratis : — 
Jailer, look to him. 

Antonio. Hear me yet, good Shylock. 

Shylock. I '11 have my bond ; I will not hear thee speak : 
I '11 have my bond ; and therefore speak no more. 
I '11 not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool, 
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield 



300 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

To Christian intercessors. Follow not ; 
I '11 have no speaking ; I will have my bond. 
Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare. 

All modes are consistent with each, other and exist simultan- 
eously, for each has a distinct meaning of its own. It is by their 
harmonious combination that vocal expression gains its power to 
reveal successive changes. 

While modes of revealing transitions depend upon harmonious 
relation to the spirit of the speech, poem, story, part, or play, still 
it is very important for the student to make isolated studies of 
special parts where various kinds of changes occur. All great 
painters make studies of every limb and leaf, of every rock, 
of the transient effect of light upon the water, of the vibration and 
texture of the surface of a human limb, and of every shade of 
color; so the student of vocal expression must exercise himself 
upon the rendering of specific lines and transitions, and as a 
painter's study is a more literal reproduction, is more exaggerated 
than his picture, so the rendering of these special extracts should be 
an accentuation of a specific truth to give the mind a firm grasp of the 
means of expression. These should be blended later into a harmon- 
ious rendering of a whole poem, story, oration, or representation as 
the painter uses his studies. It is only by accenting essential 
elements that power can be secured in any form of art. 

" Make way for Liberty," he cried : 
Made way for Liberty, and died ! 



larks ! sing out to the thrushes, and thrushes, sing as you soar ! 

1 think when another spring blushes I can tell you a great deal more. 



I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more. 



beauteous birds ! methinks ye measure 
Your movements to some heavenly tune ! 

beauteous birds ! 't is such a pleasure 
To see you move above the moon. 



So stately her bearing, so proud her array, 

The main she will traverse for ever and aye. 

Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast ! 

— Hush ! hush ! thou vain dreamer, this hour is her last ! 



MEANS OF REVEALING TRANSITIONS. 301 

O'er the deep ! O'er the deep ! 

"Where the whale, and the shark, and the sword-fish sleep, 

Outflying the blast and the driving rain, 

The Petrel telleth her tale — in vain ; 

For the mariner curse th the warning bird 

Who bringeth him news of the storm unheard ! 

Ah ! thus does the prophet, of good or ill, 

Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still : 

Yet he ne'er falters : — So, Petrel, spring 

Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing ! 



Up the dale and down the bourne, o'er the meadows swift we fly ; 

Now we sing, and now we mourn, now we whistle, now we sigh. 

Summer Wind. Darley. 

There groups of merry children played ; 
There youths and maidens, dreaming, strayed. 
precious hours ! golden prime, 
And affluence of love and time ! 
Even as a miser counts his gold, 
Those hours the ancient time-piece told : 
" Forever — never ! never — forever ! " 

Longfellow. 



No, I will weep no more. In such a night 
To shut me out ! Pour on ; I will endure. 
In such a night as this ! Regan, Goneril ! 
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all, — 
0, that way madness lies ; let me shun that ; 
No more of that. 

Hark ! distant voices, that lightly ripple the silence deep ! 
No ; the swans that, circling nightly, through the silver waters sweep. 
See I not, there, a white shimmer ? Something with pale silken shrine ? 
No ; it is the column's glimmer, 'gainst the gloomy hedge of pine. 



From that chamber, clothed in white, 
The bride came forth on her wedding night ; 
There, in that silent room below, \/ 

The dead lay, in his shroud of snow ; 
And, in the hush that followed the prayer, 
"Was heard the old clock on the stair, — 
" Forever — never ! never — forever ! " 



302 



ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

" Ho ! why dost thou shiver and shake, Gaffer Gray ? 

And why does thy nose look so blue ? " 

*"T is the weather that 's cold, 'tis I 'm grown very old, 
And my doublet is not very new, — well-a-day ! " 



Halcroft. 



"Look, Katie ! look, Katie ! when Lettice came here to be wed 

She stood where that sunbeam drops down, and all white was her gown ; 

And she stepped upon flowers they strewed for her." Then quoth small Seven, 

" Shall I wear a white gown, and have flowers to walk upon ever ? " 

All doubtful : " It takes a long time to grow up," quoth Eleven ; 

" You 're so little, you know, and the church is so old, it can never 

Last on till you 're tall." 



THE MAID OF ISLA. 

Oh, Maid of Isla, from the cliff that looks on troubled wave and sky, 
Dost thou not see yon little skiff contend with ocean gallantly ? 
Now beating 'gainst the breeze and surge, and steep'd her leeward deck in foam, 
Why does she war unequal urge ? — Oh, Isla's maid, she seeks her home. 

Oh, Isla's maid, yon sea-bird mark, her white wing gleams thro' mist and spray, 
Against the storm-cloud, lowering dark, as to the rock she wheels away ; — 
Where clouds are dark and billows rave, why to the shelter should she come 
Of cliff, exposed to wind and wave ? — Oh, Maid of Isla, 't is her home ! 

As breeze and tide to yonder skiff, thou 'rt adverse to the suit I bring, 

And cold as is yon wintry cliff, where sea-birds close their wearied wing. 

Yet cold as rock, unkind as wave, still, Isla's maid, to thee I come ; 

For in thy love, or in his grave, must Allan Yourich find his home. 

Scott. 



THE CHURCHYARD STILE. 

I left thee young and gay, Mar} 7 , when last the thorn was white ; 
I went upon my way, Mary, and ail the world seemed bright ; 
For though my love had ne'er been told, yet, yet I saw thy form 
Beside me, in the midnight watch ; above me, in the storm. 
And many a blissful dream I had, that brought thy gentle smile, 
Just as it came when last we leaned upon the Churchyard Stile. 

I 'm here to seek thee now, Mary, as all I love the best ; 

To fondly tell thee how, Mary, I 've hid thee in my breast. 

I came to yield thee up my heart, with hope, and truth, and joy, 

And crown with Manhood's honest faith the feelings of the Boy. 

I breathed thy name, but every pulse grew still and cold the while, 

For I was told thou wert asleep just by the Churchyard Stile. 



MEANS OF REVEALING TRANSITIONS. 303 

My messmates deemed me brave, Mary, upon the sinking ship ; 
But flowers o'er thy grave, Mary, have power to blanch my lip. 
I felt no throb of quailing fear amid the wrecking surf ; 
But pale and weak I tremble here, upon the osiered turf. 
I came to meet thy happy face, and woo thy gleesome smile, 
And only find thy resting-place close by the Churchyard Stile. 

Oh ! years may pass away, IVtary, and sorrow lose its sting ; 

For Time is kind, they say, Mary, and flies with healing wing ; 

The world may make me old and wise, and Hope may have new birth ; 

And other joys and other ties may link me to the earth ; 

But Memory, living to the last, shall treasure up thy smile, 

That called me back to find thy grave close to the Churchyard Stile. 

Eliza Cook. 



ONE WAY OF LOVE. 

All June I bound the rose in sheaves. 
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves 
And strow them where Pauline may pass. 
She will not turn aside ? Alas ! 
Let them lie. Suppose they die ? 
The chance was they might take her eye. 

How many a month I strove to suit 
These stubborn fingers to the lute ! 
To-day I venture all I know. 
She will not hear my music ? So ! 
Break the string ; fold the music's wing : 
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing ! 

My whole life long I learn'd to love. 

This hour my utmost art I prove 

And speak my passion — heaven or hell ? 

She will not give me heaven ? 'T is well ! 

Lose who may — I still can say, 

Those who win heaven, bless' d are they ! 



DAYBREAK. 

A wind came up out of the sea, 
And said, " mists, make room for me ! 
It hailed the ships, and cried, " Sail on, 
Ye mariners, the night is gone ! " 
And hurried landward far away, 
Crying, " Awake ! it is the day ! " 
It said unto the forest, "Shout ! 
Hang all your leafy banners out ! " 



Browning. 



304 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, 
And said, " bird, awake and sing ! " 
And o'er the farms, " chanticleer, 
Your clarion blow ! the day is near ! " 
It whispered to the fields of corn, 
" Bow down, and hail the coming morn ! " 
It shouted through the belfry-tower, 
" Awake, bell ! proclaim the hour! " 
It crossed the church-yard with a sigh, 
And said, " Not yet ! in quiet lie ! " 



Longfellow. 



Xini. MOVEMENT. 

Force in Nature acts rhythmically ; it acts and reacts. It does 
not move in a uniform stream, but by alternate pulsations and 
relaxations. 

Rhythm has been denned as " proportion in time." This is its 
artistic use in music. Rhythm in Nature is the pulsation due to 
harmonious action between a force and that which resists it. 
Wherever there is a unity of forces acting upon a unity of resist- 
ances, rhythm will be the result. Where a confusion of forces 
acts upon a chaos of resistances, rhythm is destroyed. 

The only place where a violation of rhythm occurs is in man. 
The reason is that he can do things mechanically as well as natu- 
rally ; that is, he can directly apply his will in such a way as to 
interfere with the spontaneous propulsion of the natural forces of 
his nature. 

Rhythm always results from free manifestation of force. Storms 
move rhythmically ; so do the waves of the sea and the waters 
of Niagara. The mysterious co-ordination of forces everywhere 
in Nature is thus revealed. The earth and all the planets move 
in rhythmic orbits ; and the smallest vine circles rhythmically to 
find the support by which it can climb. Nothing in Nature moves 
without rhythmic alternation. 

Again, rhythm is a characteristic of life. The heart beats 
rhythmically. The acts of respiration and digestion are performed 
rhythmically. 

The mind acts rhythmically in ail its processes. There can be 



MOVEMENT. 305 

no thinking without rhythmic pulsation. It would seem, there- 
fore, that rhythm should be one of the most important character- 
istics of vocal expression. 

There are, however, two forms of rhythm; or possibly we 
should say that it is important to distinguish between natural 
rhythm and its mechanical expression or use in art. 

Metre is not the same as rhythm ; it is an artificial expression 
of rhythm. Rhythm is its soul. The reader of poetry must 
preserve the metre at all hazards; but the rhythm of vocal ex- 
pression is something deeper and freer than this verbal expression 
of rhythm. 

Again, rhythm is the fundamental element of music; music 
starts with rhythm. The beating of the drum, " the tongs and the 
bones, " and the dance, are nothing but rhythm and its modulations. 
Transitions in movement form one of its most important elements. 
The time must be kept, or harmony and the polyphonous union 
of many instruments will be impossible. But rhythm in music 
has a mechanical regularity which is rarely if ever found_ in 
speech or Nature. Rhythni which is deeper than time, or at 
least the measure of time, is in music made primarily a matter 
of time. It is not free except in a solo, and then only in a partial 
degree. 

But rhythm in speech is free. The pulsation does not neces- 
sarily take place at any instant of time. The proportion is be- 
tween the impression and the expression; between the taking and 
the giving of an idea. There is no mechanical regularity in the 
pulsations for the sake of regularity. Each pulsation is in direct 
proportion to the mental energy and cumulation of feeling. 

Thus there is an artificial rhythm, which is a regulation of the 
action of force, making it regular, and giving " proportion in time 
as symmetry is proportion in space ; " but deeper than this, there 
is the rhythmic pulsation of Nature herself, which is also regular, 
but which can be made to obey the free movement of thought. 
Passion tends to move with the regular pulsation of the beating of 
the heart; but the mind, changing its situation, or the object of 
its attention, makes transitions in feeling, and thus continually 
varies the rhythm according to the processes of thought. 

20 



306 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Hence rhythm can be made part of a mechanical structure, as in 
poetry, or it may be simply a response to the processes of thought, 
as in conversation. 

Vocal expression must at all times directly manifest the rhyth- 
mic process of the mind. In the reading of poetry, however, it 
not only does this, but is simultaneously true to the rhythmic 
structure of the metre. The reader can preserve both, because 
rhythm is deeper than metre, and in obeying the law of rhythm, 
the metre is also preserved. 

All vocal expression is in time. Man measures time by rhythm, 
by sequence of pulsations. Hence changes in rhythm are the * 
most important expression of changes in thought and passion. 

The modulation of rhythm by emotion and thought is called 
" movement, " a term which has a meaning in every art. For 
example, it has been said that Barye showed the movement of an 
animal in his statues. The first line of his first sketch showed 
the essential action or character of the animal portrayed. 

The term is also used in painting, and has a special force in 
music; but these uses of the word are figurative. The primary 
meaning of the word is dramatic. It is in the drama and in vocal 
expression that its direct and primary significance is found. 

The nature of movement may be more or less understood from 
a study of the law of velocity. Vocal or pantomimic expression 
moves slowly in proportion to the dignity, weight, or importance 
which the reader attaches to his ideas, or in proportion to the 
degree of control, the depth or intensity of passion; while, on the 
other hand, that which is considered superficial, trite, or unim- 
portant, is given more rapidly. 

Movement, however, is not a mere matter of slowness or ra- 
pidity. A passage may be read slowly, and yet not be lifted out 
of the commonplace. It may, in fact, be made superficial and 
tedious ; while, on the other hand, a passage of great weight does 
not lose by a certain kind of speed. It is the rhythmic pulsation 
that is suggested, not the absolute amount of time that is taken in 
the reading that gives the expression. For example, if the first 
of the following passages be read with its ordinary movement, 
and with long pauses introduced, it is merely made tedious. 



MOVEMENT. 307 

Then if the second be read with the movement natural to the 
first,, it is turned into commonplace superficiality ; nor can pauses 
redeem it until the rhythmic pulsation is changed. 



So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, 
So light to the saddle before her he sprung. 



Scott. 



thou Eternal One ! whose presence bright 

All space doth occupy, all motion guide ; 
Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight ; 

Thou only God ! There is no God beside. 

The two great faults in movement are tediousness and hurry, 
each of which indicates a disproportion between time and rhythmic 
pulsation. Tediousness is a short pendulum in a long period of 
time; and hurry is the forcing of one's rate. 

Movement can only be suggested, and after being suggested, 
continues during the pause. The way a few words are spoken gives 
the rhythm to the thought and feeling, and this continues during 
the silence. 

Changes in movement, indicating as they do transitions in these 
elements, are of great importance, and occur continually in all 
vocal expression. Where the changes of rhythm are artificial, or 
the movement monotonous, there is no true assimilation. 

A story is primarily dependent upon the movement of events. 
Hence, whenever something happens, especially if unexpected, 
there is a transition in movement, though it may be only momen- 
tary. Notice for example in the following extract how the reader 
changes his movement in sympathy with Lartius and Herminius. 

But meanwhile axe and lever have manfully been plied, and now the 
bridge hangs tottering above the boiling tide. " Come back, come back, 
Horatius ! " loud cried the fathers all. "Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 
back, ere the ruin fall ! " Back darted Spurius Lartius ; Herminius darted 
back : and as they passed, beneath their feet they felt the timbers crack. But 
when they turned their faces, and on the farther shore saw brave Horatius 
stand alone, they would have crossed once more. But with a crash like 
thunder fell every loosened beam, and, like a dam, the mighty wreck lay right 
athwart the stream: and a long shout of triumph rose from the walls of Rome, 
as to the highest turret-tops was splashed the yellow foam. 



308 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Every passion has a movement peculiar to itself. Take any 
illustration where there are changes in feeling, and note the fact 
that unless there be a change of movement, there can hardly be a 
change in feeling, or even any change of the other modulations of 
the voice. 

Notice the fine transitions of movement in the last stanza of 
Paul Revere (p. 202). The events are first literally referred to, and 
then their historical significance. 

The higher the literature or the greater the dignity of vocal 
expression, the more will transitions of movement be necessary. 
Thus, in the reading of the Scriptures, change of movement is one 
of the most effective means of interpreting the thought, weight, 
dignity, or feeling of the message. In the Beatitudes notice the 
difference between the announcement of the principal clause and 
the reason assigned. Observe also in the following illustrations 
while all is solemn, yet the clauses " few there be that find it " and 
" many there be that go in thereat " are spoken with regret. A 
delicate change of tone-color, with slower movement, implies an 
appreciation of the situation. 

Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the 
way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat : 
because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, 
and few there be that find it. 

In the climax of the Sermon on the Mount, the words " and it 
fell " are given as if the reader were himself taking warning, hence 
the movement is slower than the preceding words. Notice also 
the last verse of the chapter, which is not a part of the address 
but a description of its effect; when this is given simply and col- 
loquially, it accentuates the weight of movement in the sermon 
itself. 

Every one therefore which heareth these words of mine, and doeth 
them, shall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon the 
rock : and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, 
and beat upon that house ; and it fell not: for it was founded upon the 
rock. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them 
not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the 



MOVEMENT. 309 

sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds Hew, 
and smote upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall thereof. 
And it came to pass, when Jesus ended these words, that the multi- 
tudes were astonished at his teaching : for he taught them as one having 
authority, and not as their scribes. Matt. vii. 24-29. 

THE HUNT. 

In the bright October morning Savoy's duke had left his bride. 
From the castle, past the drawbridge, flow'd the hunters' merry tide. 
Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering, gay her smiling lord to greet, 
From her mullion'd chamber-casement smiles the Duchess Marguerite. 
From Vienna, by the Danube, here she came, a bride, in spring, 
Now the autumn crisps the forest ; hunters gather, bugles ring. 
Hounds are pulling, prickers swearing, horses fret, and boar-spears glance. 
Off, — they sweep the marshy forests, westward on the side of France. 
Hark ! the game 's on foot ; they scatter, — down the forest-ridings lone, 
Furious, single horsemen gallop. Hark ! a shout, — a crash, — a groan. 
Pale and breathless came the hunters — on the turf dead lies the boar. 
Ah ! the duke lies stretched beside him senseless, weltering in his gore. 

In the dull October evening, down the leaf-strewn forest-road, 

To the castle, past the drawbridge, came the hunters with their load. 

In the hall, with sconces blazing, ladies waiting round her seat, 

Clothed in smiles, beneath the dais sate the Duchess Marguerite. 

Hark ! below the gates unbarring, tramp of men, and quick commands. 

" 'Tis my lord come back from hunting," — and the duchess claps her hands. 

Slow and tired came the hunters ; stopp'd in darkness in the court. 

" Ho ! this way, ye laggard hunters. To the hall. What sport ! what sport ! " 

Slow they entered with their master ; in the hall they laid him down. 

On his coat were leaves and blood-stains, on his brow an angry frown. 

Dead her princely youthful husband lay before his youthful wife, 

Bloody 'neath the flaring sconces : and the sight froze all her life. 

In Vienna, by the Danube, kings hold revel, gallants meet. 

Gay of old amid the gayest was the Duchess Marguerite. 

In Vienna, by the Danube, feast and dance her youth beguiled : 

Till that hour she never sorrow'd, but from then she never smiled. 

The Church of Brou. Matthew Arnold. 

In this extract we nave first the joy of the duchess, the initia- 
tion and the excitement of the hunt, and then the death of the 
duke. This death, however, is not chosen as the climax of sym- 
pathy, but its revelation to the wife. The poet brings us slowly 
and sorrowfully toward the castle, bearing the heavy load. Then 



310 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

the movement of her great joy, unconscious of the coming agony, 
brings by rhythmic reaction the climax of intensity. 

Professor Bain has called the description of Mont Blanc by 
Coleridge (p. 40) " still-life description at its utmost sublimity, " 
and has compared it with " the greater impressiveness of action," 
as illustrated in Byron's "Thunderstorm." 

The sky is changed ! and such a change ! O Night, and Storm, and Dark- 
ness, ye are wondrous strong, yet lovely in your strength, as the light of a dark 
eye in woman ! Far along, from peak to peak, the rattling crags among, leaps 
the live thunder ! — not from one lone cloud, but every mountain now hath 
found a tongue ; and Jura answers, through her misty shroud, back to the 
joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! and this is in the night. — Most glorious 
night ! Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be a sharer in thy fierce and 
far delight, — a portion of the tempest and of thee ! How the lit lake shines, 
— a phosphoric sea, — and the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! and now 
again 'tis black — and now, the glee of the loud hills shakes with its moun- 
tain mirth, as if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 

One difference between this and Coleridge's hymn is a difference 
in movement. The lines or words referring to " a dark eye in 
woman, " have been sometimes regarded as a Byronic blemish, but 
does not even this phrase aid in giving life and movement to the 
storm ? Often what we have considered as blemishes, are found 
after deeper study to be qualities. 

Away ! away to the rocky glen, where the deer are wildly bounding ! 
And the hills shall echo in gladness again, to the hunter's bugle sounding. 



Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before 
the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou haclst formed the earth 
and the w r orld, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. 



J o> 



Problem XXXI. — Read light and exultant lines in contrast with those 
full of weight. Also, practise various transitions in degrees of excite- 
ment or control, dignity or weight of ideas, and changes from exultation 
to regret, and from one point of view or emotion to another. 

With that he cried and beat his breast ; for, lo ! along the river's "bed a 
mighty eagre reared his crest, and uppe the Lindis raging sped. It swept 
with thunderous noises loud ; shaped like a curling snow-white cloud, or like 
a demon in a shroud. ... So farre, so fast the eagre drave, the heart had 






MOVEMENT. 311 

hardly time to beat, before a shallow seething wave sobbed in the grasses at 
oure feet ; the feet had hardly time to flee before it brake against the knee, 
and all the world was in the sea. Upon the roofe we sate that night ; the 
noise of bells went sweeping by, I marked the lofty beacon light stream 
from the church tower, red and high, — a lurid mark and dread to see ; and 
awsome bells they were to mee, that in the dark rang "Enderby." They 
rang the sailor lads to guide from roofe to roofe who fearless rowed ; and I — 
my sonne was at my side, and yet the ruddy beacon glowed ; and yet he 
moaned beneath his breath, " come in life, or come in death ! lost ! my 
love, Elizabeth." And didst thou visit him no more ? thou didst, thou didst, 
my daughter deare ; the waters laid thee at his doore, ere yet the early dawn 
was clear. Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, the lifted sun shone on thy 
face, downe drifted to thy dwelling-place. 



Out — out into the darkness — faster, and still more fast; 
The smooth grass flies behind her, the chestnut wood is passed; 
She looks up ; the clouds are heavy : why is her steed so slow ? — 
Scarcely the wind beside them can pass them as they go. 
" Faster ! " she cries, " oh, faster ! " Eleven the church bells chime ; 
" God," she cries, " help Bregenz, and bring me there in time ! " • 
But louder than bells ringing, or lowing of the kine, 
Grows nearer in the midnight the rushing of the Rhine. 
Shall not the roaring waters their headlong gallop check ? 
The steed draws back in terror, she leans upon his neck 
To watch the flowing darkness ; the bank is high and steep ; 
One pause — he staggers forward, and plunges in the deep. 
She strives to pierce the darkness, and looser throws the rein ; 
Her steed must breast the waters that dash above his mane. 
How gallantly, how nobly, he struggles through the foam, 
And see — in the far distance, shine out the lights of home ! 
From Legend of Bregenz. Adelaide Procter. 

Hurrah ! hurrah ! a single field hath turned the chance of war. 
Hurrah ! hurrah ! for Ivry and King Henry of Navarre ! 
Oh, how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day, 
"We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array ; 
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, 
And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears ! 
There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land ! 
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand ; 
And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, 
And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood ; 
And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, 
To light for His own holy Name, and Henry of Navarre. 



312 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAilATIC RELATIONS. 

The King has come to marshal us, in all his armor drest, 

And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest. 

He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 

He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high. 

Right graciously, he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing, 

Down all our line, in deafening shout, "God save our lord the King ! 

"And if my standard-bearer fall, — as fall full well he may, 

For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, — 

Press where ye see my white plume shine, amid the ranks of war, 

And be your oriflamme, to-day, the helmet of Navarre." 



Gloriously, Max! gloriously! There were sixty horses in the field, 
all mettle to the bone ; the start was a picture. Away we went in a 
cloud, pell-mell, helter-skelter, — the fools first, as usual, using them- 
selves up. We soon passed thern, — first your Kitty, then my Blueskin, 
and Craven's colt last. Then came the tug — Kitty skimmed the walls 
— Blueskin flew over the fences — the colt neck-and-neck, and half a 
mile to run — at last the colt baulked a leap and went wild. Kitty 
and I had it all to ourselves — she was three lengths ahead as we 
breasted the last wall, six feet, if an inch, and a ditch on the other side. 
Now, for the first time, I gave Blueskin his head — ha! ha! Away he 
flew like a thunderbolt — over went the filly — I over the same spot, 
leaving Kitty in the ditch — walked the steeple, eight miles in thirty 
minutes, and scarcely turned a hair. 



XLIV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ASSIMILATION. 

Thus far some of the sympathetic actions or relations of the mind 
have been discussed, and exercises presented to develop them. 
Of the importance of this, little need be said. The variety and 
force, as well as the charm of vocal expression, depend upon 
assimilation and its revelation. Without assimilation there can 
be no truthfulness of emotion, which is just as important as truth- 
fulness of thought, for truthfulness of expression depends equally 
upon both. The best method of securing assimilation is the de- 
velopment of the imagination and dramatic instinct. There are, 
however, many difficulties in the practice of assimilation. In the 
first place, men do not realize their lack of it; do not perceive 
that truth may be merely in the memory, and bear no relation 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ASSIMILATION. 3l3 

to their experience or character. There is thus great need of a 
teacher who has great insight to show the student wherein he 
fails to have the right attitude towards truth. Many speakers 
seem to have no power to change their point of view or relation 
to truth or to auditor. Many clergymen teach didactically not 
only in delivering every idea of the sermon, but in reading the 
Bible, and even in prayer. 

The whole work of studying literature should be so systematized 
as to centre in assimilation and the development of the imagina- 
tion and dramatic instinct of the student. This is one of the 
special reasons why vocal expression should be the chief aid in 
the study of literature. 

The beginning and the procedure must vary more or less with 
each particular case. The student should begin with something 
he likes and can comprehend; but he should be led as soon as 
possible to something more difficult. The study of literature must 
not be undertaken as a pure matter of enjoyment, but as a study, 
though not a mechanical one ; there should always be something 
of delight in it, as the chief aim of literature is to give pleasure. 

It is best usually to begin with lyrics and narratives. The lyric 
develops emotion, causes intense realization of simple situations, 
and trains the mind to hold a situation until feeling dominates the 
voice. It is the first means of disciplining imaginative attention. 
In proportion to the depth of its feeling, a lyric is most easily 
assimilated, and has the most immediate effect upon the imagina- 
tion and also upon dramatic instinct; in fact, dramatic action with- 
out the lyric element is apt to be mechanical and imitative. 

Simultaneously with the lyric — or before it with children — 
should come study of the story or narrative poem. It is im- 
portant that the story shall be poetic. This has a different effect 
from that of the lyric. . The story or ballad will develop the se- 
quence of ideas. It will lead the mind to associate picture with 
picture, and develop that progressive imaginative conception which 
is the soul of dramatic movement. 

This method of dealing with the individual follows the order of 
race development. As the song and the ballad are among the 
earliest forms of literature, so they should be the earliest in edu- 



314 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

cation. The epic is more or less of an extended ballad, and should 
be studied usually before the dramatic form. 

The various forms of literature should be practised with a care- 
ful realization of the spirit of each. An epic we may read in con- 
trast with a lyric; a short story or a dramatic composition may 
be compared with an oration. 

Famous orations should also be studied. There has been great 
imperfection, however, in the method of such work. The student 
often separates oratory from any dramatic and assimilative action ; 
he has an extravagant idea of speaking, and so declaims with loud 
tones, and thus totally perverts the true action of the mind in 
reading and in speaking. 

Again, the student should be tested, not only in the study of 
literature, but in every practical form of speaking. He should 
read, recite, impersonate, speak extemporaneously, conduct a con- 
versation, tell a story, debate, and exercise himself, in short, in 
every phase of vocal expression, and compare these with each, 
other to find his faults and needs. 

But again, the student must not disdain work upon the most 
elemental exercises ; he should read in direct contrast diverse emo- 
tions. For example, he should take a line of joy and read it in 
direct contrast with a line of sorrow, and ascertain if he has 
mannerisms which prevent his making definite contrast. Such 
exercises quicken the consciousness of the student for form. Many 
able scholars are unable to recognize that they give such lines 
exactly alike. Such an exercise is most important to the speaker ; 
it makes him definite in his thought in imaginative action and 
assimilation, and produces truthfulness of emotion. Such an 
exercise tends to make him realize his lack of versatility and 
responsiveness, of power to create and assimilate a situation. 

A comparison of modes of expression is an important aid in 
testing assimilation as well as for its development. A speaker can 
test his relation to thought by rendering a monologue. It furnishes 
a mirror to his consciousness of himself. Again, one who always 
speaks in one way may occasionally adopt a different method, and so 
find another point of view from which to study himself. 

Nor should the student underestimate exercises in transition, 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DIALOGUES. 315 

such as have been unfolded in the preceding lessons. He should 
practise poems full of sudden contrasts, or gradations, or changes 
in point of view and feeling. 

Any great poem, which may at first seem to be monotonous, 
will be found to be full of such changes. The student should not 
practise that alone which he can do best, but also what he feels 
less able to express. He should meditate over the greatest poetry, 
and struggle to reveal the deepest and most delicate variations of 
the imagination. His first aim is the development of his nature, 
and not the mere rendering of a special selection. 

A few methods for the development of assimilation will now be 
discussed separately on account of their importance, to secure a 
broader and deeper understanding of the nature of assimilation, 
and also to correct the common misconceptions regarding them. 



XLV. THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DIALOGUES. 

Since dramatic instinct is so important, the question naturally 
arises respecting the use of dialogues for its education. There are 
those who think that all histrionic art is useless; that it is even 
deleterious to character to assume a part. 

The best answer to this is the study of the little child. The 
very first means a child adopts to get out of itself, or to realize the 
great world about it, is by dramatic action and instinct. No child 
was ever born with any mind at all, that had not some of this 
instinct; and the more promising the child, the more is it dramatic 
and imaginative. Dramatic instinct is universal. It is the secret 
of all success ; it is the instinct by which man sees things from 
different points of view, by which he realizes the ideal in character 
in contrast to that which is not ideal. 

Philosophers have shown that education begins in a kind of 
imitation. Many do not like the word " imitation, " and perhaps 
" dramatic assimilation " would be better. But by whatever name 
it may be called, it is the instinctive identification of ourselves with 
the situation or point of view, the life or the feeling of another. 
The imaginative creation, the sympathetic identification of the 



316 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

child or the human being with the great world, arid the exuber- 
ance of life expressed in dramatic play, is a most essential part of 
the development of a human being. 

Professor Monroe was once asked by a clergyman for private 
lessons. He told him that was impossible. " Well, " said the minis- 
ter, " what can I do then 1 " " Go home and read Shakespeare dra- 
matically. " Why was such advice given 1 Because the struggle to 
read Shakespeare would get the minister out of himself. The 
struggle to realize how men of different types of character would 
speak certain things, would make him conscious whether he, 
himself, spoke naturally. He would, in short, become aware of 
his mannerisms, of his narrow gamut of emotions, his sameness of 
point of view ; he would be brought into direct contact with the 
process of his own mind in thinking. 

It is important and helpful to induce one with a mannerism to 
use some form of speaking unusual to him, a new kind of theme, 
a different situation or purpose. Such an exercise is afforded to 
the speaker by the right study of a dialogue. The struggle to 
realize the dramatic creations of Shakespeare is a great help in 
widening a man's conception or realization of his race. For the 
same reason readers or actors may be made to speak. 

The educational value of play has been proved by Froebel, and 
is too well recognized to need discussion. The most important 
tilings of life are learned unconsciously. When we are too con- 
scious of our growth there is apt to be something wrong. Growth 
is spontaneous, unconscious, involuntary. Let the teacher of 
delivery train the speaker to speak only or the actor to act only, 
and his student is apt to become stilted, labored, and unconscious 
of his needs; but let the same student face another in a simple 
dialogue, and the teacher can put his finger upon the labor and can 
make the pupil realize it. 

The dialogue develops self-control; it teaches command of 
thought, of imagination, and passion. It makes us realize the 
nature of expression, its subjective processes, and its direct rela- 
tionship to other minds. That there is danger in histrionic 
expression all will admit. But there is danger in everything. 
The most effective things in the world are the most capable of 



THE EDUCATIONAL YALUE OF DIALOGUES. 3l7 

perversion; but possibility of perversion only proves the power of- 
such an exercise for good when rightly used. 

Take the vast accumulation of dry, vague criticisms which have 
been heaped upon Shakespeare. Hundreds of books, for example, 
have been written upon the one play of " Hamlet. " To understand 
" Hamlet, " shall we read these books ? That is the best way to lose 
our imaginative insight into such a masterpiece. Study the play 
itself; try to render certain of its dialogues and soliloquies. While 
we may not be able to discover all there is in it by such a method, 
we shall at least have a higher appreciation of its greatness. 
Someone has said that we can always explain what we do not 
understand, but never explain what we thoroughly appreciate. 
This paradox is true in the study of art and literature. Art 
appeals to the heart, and not to the head ; to imagination and feel- 
ing, and not to reason. The process of reasoning about a picture is 
necessarily analytic and not synthetic, and from the heart of the 
picture ; and this is true also of " Hamlet. " The merely theoretic 
study of the drama is as bad as the merely theoretic study of 
painting, which is condemned by all artists. Books about art and 
about literature are rarely good, and of value only so far as they 
cause a better appreciation of the right point of view and lead to 
artistic endeavor of some kind. Explanation is often an interpola- 
tion and alteration. 

The present condition of dramatic art is deplorable. Men go to 
the theatre merely for amusement, and not for education. It is 
chiefly in Germany that there is any educational use of the drama. 
We have no spontaneous expressions of disapproval at the theatre. 
In some quarters, there is approval of everything, in others, 
approval of nothing. There is a failure to appreciate the real 
character of dramatic art. Dramatic art has in all ages been the 
most popular. It is dear to the popular heart because it is most 
closely connected with the idea of play. As all art is play reduced 
to the principle of order, we can see the effect of dramatic art 
upon other arts. 

In all ages of the world dramatic art has been the most potent 
for good or evil. There is great need for the educational use of 
the noblest drama, to develop public taste, and to drive from the 



318 . ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

boards those things which tend to degrade. The true principle 
is, please people above the plane of the actual along the line of 
their ideals and you elevate them ; while if they are pleased on a 
plane below their everyday thought and feeling, they are degraded. 

There are great dangers in amateur performances. They are 
often artificial and extravagant, because amateurs study without 
any principle, but only by imitation. Dramatic expression needs 
careful direction, with a broad study and appreciation of art. 

The special safeguard in the study of dramatic art or dialogue 
is to note whether the process in the taking of a character is by 
assimilation or by imitation. This is very important, because it 
is only in low farce where imitation predominates; and if the 
imitative process is adopted, the highest tragedy is turned into 
farce, as is often the case with amateur performers. 

Noble dramatic expression results from assimilation. It is only 
by imaginative insight and dramatic sympathy, causing the iden- 
tification of ourselves with others, with conception of points of 
view and character, that dramatic instinct really has any play or 
expression. 

MEMORABILIA. 

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, and did he stop and speak to you,. 

And did you speak to him again ? How strange it seems, and new ! 

But you were living before that, and also you are living after ; 

And the memory I started at — My starting moves your laughter ! 

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own and a certain use in the world, no 

doubt, 

Yet a hand's-breath of it shines alone 'mid the blank miles round about : 

For there I picked up on the heather and there I put inside my breast 

A moulted feather, an eagle-feather ! well I forget the rest. 

Browning. 



FERDINAND AND MIRANDA. 

Ferdinand. I do beseech you, — 

Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers, — 
"What is your name ? 

Miranda. Miranda. — my father ! 

I have broke your hest to say so. 

Fer. Admired Miranda ! 

Indeed, the top of admiration ; worth 
"What 's dearest to the world ! Full many a lady 
I have eyed with best regard ; and many a time 






THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DIALOGUES. 319 

The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage 
Brought my too diligent ear : for several virtues 
Have I liked several women ; never any 
"With so full soul, but some defect in her 
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, 
And put it to the foil : but you, you ! 
So perfect, and so peerless, are created 
Of every creature's best. 

Mira. I do not know 

One of my sex ; no woman's face remember, 
Save, from my glass, my own ; nor have I seen 
More that I may call men, than you, good friend, \ 
And my dear father : how features are abroad 
I am skill-less of ; but, by my modesty 
(The jewel in my dower), I would not wish 
Any companion in the world but you ; 
Nor can imagination form a shape, 
Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle 
Something too wildly, and my father's precepts 
I therein do forget. 

Fer. I am, in my condition, 

A prince, Miranda ; I do think, a king 
(I would, not so !) ; and would no more endure 
This wooden slavery, than to suffer 
The flesh-fly blow my mouth. — Hear my soul speak : — 
The very instant that I saw you, did 
My heart fly to your service ; there resides, 
To make me slave to it ; and for your sake, 
Am I this patient log-man. 

Mira. Do you love me ? 

Fer. heaven ! earth ! bear witness to this sound, 
And crown what I profess with kind event, 
If I speak true : if hollowly, invert 
What best is boded me to mischief ! I, 
Beyond all limit -of what else i' the world, 
Do love, prize, honour you. 

Mira. I am a fool 

To weep at what I am glad of. 

Prospero. [Aside. ] Fair encounter 

Of two most rare affections ! Heaven rain grace 
On that which breeds between them ! 

Fer. "Wherefore weep you ? 

Mira. At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer 
What I desire to give ; and much less take 



320 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

What I shall die to want. But this is trifling ; 

And all the more it seeks to hide itself, 

The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning ! 

And prompt me, plain and holy innocence ! 

I am your wife, if you will marry me ; 

If not, I '11 die your maid : to be your fellow 

You may deny me ; but I '11 be your servant, 

Whether you will or no. 

Fer. My mistress, dearest, 

And I thus humble ever. 

Mira. My husband, then ? 

Fer. Ay, with a heart as willing 
As bondage e'er of freedom : here 's my hand. 

Mira. And mine, with my heart in 't : and now farewell, 

Till half an hour hence. 

Fer. A thousand thousand ! 

Tempest. Shakespeare. 

THE CAPTAIN AND THE TREASURER. 

Kempthom. A dull life this, — a dull life, anyway ! 
Ready for sea ; the cargo all aboard, 
Cleared for Barbadoes, and a fair wind blowing 
From nor'-nor'-west ; and I, an idle lubber, 
Laid neck and heels by that confounded bond ! 
I said to Ralph, says I, " What 's to be done ? " 
Says he : * ' Just slip your hawser in the night ; 
Sheer off, and pay it with the topsail, Simon." 
But that won't do, because, you see, the owners 
Somehow or other are mixed up with it. 

[Enter Edward Butter with an ear-trumpet. 

Butter. Good-morning, Captain Kempthom. 

Kemp. Sir, to you. 

You 've the advantage of me. I don't know you. 
What may I call your name ? 

Butter. That 's not your name ? 

Kemp. Yes, that 's my name. What 's yours ? 

Butter. My name is Butter. 

I am the treasurer of the Commonwealth. 

Kemp. Will you be seated ? 

Butter. What say ? Who 's conceited ? 

Kemp. Will you sit down ? 

Butter. 0, thank you. 

___ Kemp. Spread yourself 

Upon this chair, sweet Butter. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DIALOGUES. 321 

Butter. [Sitting down.] A fine morning. 

Kemp. Nothing 's the matter with it that I know of. 
I have seen better, and I have seen worse. 
The wind 's nor'-west. That 's fair for them that sail. 

Butter. You need not speak so loud ; I understand you. 
You sail to-day. 

Kemp. No, I don't sail to-day. 

So, be it fair or foul, it matters not. 
Say, will you smoke ? There 's choice tobacco here. 

Butter. No, thank you. It 's against the law to smoke. 

Kemp. Well, almost everything 's against the law 
In this good town. Give a wide berth to one thing, 
You 're sure to fetch up soon on something else. 

Butter. And so you sail to-day for dear Old England ? 
I am not one of those who think a sup 
Of this New England air is better worth 
Than a whole draught of our Old England's ale. 

Kemp. Nor I. Give me the ale and keep the air. 
But, as I said, I do not sail to-day. 

Butter. Ah, yes ; you sail to-day. 

Kemp. I 'm under bonds 

To take some Quakers back to the Barbadoes ; 
And one of them is banished, and another 
Is sentenced to be hanged. 

Butter. No, all are pardoned, 

All are set free by order of the Court ; 
But some of them would fain return to England. 
You must not take them. Upon that condition 
Your bond is cancelled. 

Kemp. Ah, the wind has shifted ! 

I pray you, do you speak officially ? 

Butter. I always speak officially. To prove it, 
Here is the bond. [Rising and giving a paper.] 

Kemp. And here 's my hand upon it. 

And, look you, when I say I '11 do a thing 
The thing is done. Am I now free to go ? 

Butter. What say ? 

Kemp. I say, confound the tedious man, 

With his strange speaking-trumpet ! Can I go ? 

Butter. You 're free to go, by order of the Court. 
Your servant, sir. _ [Exit. 

Kemp. [Shouting from the window."] Swallow, ahoy ! Hallo ! 
If ever a man was happy to leave Boston, 

That man is Simon Kempthorn of the Swallow ! [Re-enter Buttek. 

21 



322 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Butter. Pray, did you call ? 

Kemp. Call ? Yes, I hailed the Swallow. 

Butter. That 's not my name. My name is Edward Butter. 
You need not speak so loud. 

Kemp. [Shaking hands]. Good-bye ! Good-bye ! 
Butter. Your servant, sir. 

Kemp. And yours, a thousand times. [Exeunt. 

Longfellow. 



XLVI. SPEAKING AND ACTING. 

Speaking and acting are often considered antagonistic to each 
other. The actor has been advised never to speak upon the plat- 
form, and the speaker warned against practising dialogues. Mr. 
Joseph Jefferson, in a lecture given at our two foremost univer- 
sities, has said, " Actors fail as orators and orators as actors. The 
two arts go hand in hand so far as magnetism and intelligence are 
concerned, but there comes a point where they diverge widely. 
The actor is, or should be, impressionable and sensitive ; the orator 
must have the power of impressing." Accordingly, the true actor 
is known by his capacity for listening rather than by his speaking, 
while the speaker does not listen, but directly addresses, and seeks 
to impress or dominate the attention and jeering of the audience. 
The secret of acting consists mainly in the power to give at- 
tention to the ideas uttered by the interlocutor, and his " action " 
is the response of imagination, feeling, and body to these ideas. 

But while this is true, the actor must also speak as well as 
listen; he must have the power to change from the attitude of 
hearer and to become a speaker ; and while the orator is always a 
speaker, still, the secret of true oratoric delivery is his power to 
receive spontaneous impressions from his own successive ideas. 
He is the best speaker who is best able to give subjective atten- 
tion to his own thought. Each successive picture, each stage in 
the processes of his thought, must cause a sensitive response. 
The true speaker rarely dominates the attention of his audience . 
by mere force of will ; he wins attention by showing intense inter- 
est himself in the successive ideas which come to him. In fact, 
the secret of both oratory and action is attention. The actor listens 



SPEAKING AND ACTING. 323 

objectively, the orator more subjectively. With an imaginative 
conception of the point of view and nature of some character, the 
actor gives his attention to his interlocutor, or to what his inter- 
locutor is saying, showing by his action the effect of what he 
sees and hears^ The orator, on the other hand, shows the effect 
of the discovery of successive ideas in his own mind. He displays 
a sensitive response to vivid conceptions which hold and direct 
the attention of his auditor also. The speaker wins sympathetic 
attention, and awakens the faculties of other minds by making 
them feel the action of the same faculties in himself. 

One very common fault of speakers is a strenuous earnestness, 
or an earnestness that is volitional or physical rather than intel- 
lectual or emotional. True earnestness requires a mental balance, 
a co-ordinate response, from all the faculties. This can only be 
gained by yielding the whole nature to each successive idea or 
situation. 

Dramatic instinct must be considered as something broader 
than acting. It must even be separated from stage representation. 
If dramatic instinct consist in the elements which have here been 
shown, — the power to see things from another's point of view; to 
feel the motives of men ; to enter into an imaginative situation, 
and to feel the processes of thought and experience which would 
be the natural result upon a human being in such surroundings; 
to get out of the narrow circle of the individual and become a 
part of the race, — if it be all these, then it belongs to the 
orator fully as much as to the actor. In fact, it belongs to 
every human being, and is an element in human nature which 
is essential to all success, and needs development and normal 
direction. 

Not only so, but if the orator speaks merely, he is apt to lose 
the fundamental elements of dramatic instinct, and the same is 
true of the actor. While speaking and acting are different, yet 
the student should practise both for assistance in the development 
of his dramatic instinct, and the better grasp of his chosen art. 

The principle here involved is found in the relation of the 
imaginative arts to each other. The greatest artists occasionally 
practise a different art from their own for the sake of changing 



324 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

their point of view and finding out a new side to nature. They 
awaken thus their artistic powers, and discover any tendencies 
towards mannerisms or superficial conceptions of their work. 

HENRY V. TO HIS TROOPS. 

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ; . 

Or close the wall up with our English dead ! 

In peace, there 's nothing so becomes a man, 

As modest stillness and humility : 

But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 

Then imitate the action of the tiger ; 

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 

Disguise fair nature with hard favor'd rage, 

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ; 

Let it pry through the portage of the head, 

Like the brass cannon ; let the brow o'erwhelm it, 

As fearfully as doth a galled rock 

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base 

Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. 

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide ; 

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 

To his full height. — On, on, you noblest English, 

"Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof, 

Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders, 

Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought, 

And sheathed their swords for lack of argument. 

Dishonor not your mothers : now attest, 

That those, whom you called fathers, did beget you : 

Be copy now to men of grosser blood, 

And teach them how to war ! — and you, good yeomen, 

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here 

The mettle of your pasture ; let us swear 

That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not ; 

For there is none of you so mean and base, 

That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. 

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 

Straining upon the start. The game 's afoot ; 

Follow your spirit : and, upon this charge, 

Cry — God for Harry ! England ! and Saint George ! 

Shakespeare. 

Webster called up an imaginary scene consistent with the facts 
in his speech on the murder of Mr. White, and allowed his mind 



SPEAKING AND ACTING. 325 

and heart to be impressed by each successive conception. What 
actor ever received greater impressions from his interlocutor than 
Webster did from the scenes depicted by his imagination ? 

An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and 
in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. 
Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his 
roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet — the first sound 
slumbers of the night hold him in their soft but strong embrace. The 
assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccu- 
pied apartment; with noiseless foot, he paces the lonely hall, half-lighted 
by the moon ; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door 
of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pres- 
sure, till it turns on its hinges ; and he enters, and beholds his victim 
before him. The room was uncommonly light. The face of the inno- 
cent sleeper was turned from the murderer ; and the beams of the moon, 
resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to 
strike. The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes, without a strug- 
gle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death ! 

It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work ; and he yet plies the 
dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow 
of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in 
his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the pon- 
iard ! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse ! He 
feels it, and ascertains that it beats no longer ! It is accomplished ! The 
deed is done ! He retreats, — retraces his steps to the window, passes 
through as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder; no eye 
has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and he is 
safe! Ah, gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can 
be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor cor- 
ner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. . . . The guilty 
soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself, — or, rather, it 
feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself ; it labors 
under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The 
human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant ; it 
finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to 
God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sympathy or 
assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer 
carries soon comes to possess him. . . . He feels it beating at his heart, 
rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole 
world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its work' 



326 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

ings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master ; it 
betrays his discretion ; it breaks down his courage ; it conquers his 
prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and 
the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with 
still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed; it will be 
confessed. There is no refuge from confession but in suicide, and suicide 
is confession. Daniel Webster. 



XIvTI. MODES OF HISTEIONIC EXPRESSION. 

Acting and speaking are not the only modes of vocal delivery. 
Between these two extremes there have been many forms in nearly 
every age. Among the earliest of all public entertainments was 
the recitation of the epic, the lyric, and other poems at the Ionic 
feasts ; and even the recitation from his histories by Herodotus, 
as some think, at the Olympian games, at any rate in Athens. 

During the present century, there has been a great revival of 
public reading as a means of entertainment. It has gradually 
assumed many forms as practised by different artists. Charlotte 
Cushman, for example, whose readings can never be forgotten by 
those who heard them, especially her farewell course in the Boston 
Music Hall, which followed her farewell to the stage, nearly always 
read from a book, seated at a little table. Occasionally, she gave 
recitations or impersonation from Macbeth or her favorite plays; 
but these were rare. Her intensity, her great versatility and 
suggestiveness, the mobility of her face and flexibility of her voice, 
enabled her to suggest the deepest subtleties of the highest litera- 
ture with perfect ease and repose. Many have followed in her 
steps. Professor Bobert B. Baymond was one of the most 
illustrious readers of Shakespeare. Though reading from his book 
as closely as Charlotte Cushman, he stood, and rendered his 
characters with the whole body, — in many cases with the extreme 
pantomimic representation of acting. His greatest success was in 
the humorous parts of Shakespeare, which have possibly never 
received better interpretation. 

One of the oldest forms of vocal rendering is recitation from 
memory. The reciter takes the attitude of the speaker, and 
everything is, in fact, given from the point of view of the orator. 



MODES OF HISTRIONIC EXPRESSION. 327 

This form has been practised in all the schools and colleges, and 
has been called declamation. It is chiefly a recitation from the 
orators, — a custom which we know came down to us from the 
Greeks, and with us has been gradually extended to include, as it 
did with the Greeks, the recitation of every form of poetry, and 
also of general literature. 

Eecently, there has grown up also another form of vocal render- 
ing which is called impersonation. The impersonator either sits 
or stands, or does both; he uses his chair, his hat, coat, gloves, 
desk, or table occasionally as properties, acting each character with 
the fidelity of the stage. Frequently there is an exaggeration 
beyond what would appear on the stage of certain pantomimic 
bearings or vocal modulations, for the purpose of accentuating the 
opposition of characters to each other, which, of course, can only be 
done at moments, not by continuity, as in stage representation. 

The monologue differs from impersonation in that the reader 
takes but one character, the story being constructed so as to sug- 
gest other characters indirectly by the speech of one. This has not 
been often practised except in France, where the leading actors 
with few exceptions have studied monologues and rendered them. 
Ten or twelve volumes in one series of monologues have been 
published during the past fifteen years. The two Coquelins are 
the chief representatives of this form of histrionic expression. 

Each of these forms has had its advocates. Some have gone so 
far as to think that impersonations and monologues, or even recita- 
tions, are inartistic ; that only public reading is true art. Others, 
however, advocate recitations, some, impersonations ; but it must 
be borne in mind that all forms have their place. Each is adapted 
to certain occasions and to certain forms and grades of literary art. 
Any one of them may be lifted to an artistic plane, and most 
of them may be degraded to the lowest plane of farce. The princi- 
ple is not the mode of the art, but the art principles that are 
embodied ; everything must be consistent and harmonious. Even 
stage accentuations and exaggerations may be allowed for the 
purpose of a fuller interpretation; but such exaggerations must 
be simple and in harmony with the literary spirit of the selections 
rendered. 



328 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

A reader like Charlotte Cushman must be more suggestive ; and 
hence when there is the power of suggestion, as was the case with 
her, the greatest tragical works in the highest literature can be 
presented, which the impersonator hesitates to undertake. If, 
however, he understood the broader principles of art, and the high- 
est possible control of voice and body, and was willing to be delicate 
and suggestive, the very noblest poetry could be rendered even as 
an impersonation, and especially as a monologue. The ordinary 
reader never renders such poems as Browning's " Saul, " because 
neither his imagination nor feeling are sufficiently cultivated to 
appreciate them, nor his voice and vocal expression sufficiently 
trained to render them. At present, impersonation usually is 
confined to the plane of comedy, on account of its extreme repre- 
sentative character, and the taste of audiences. It lends itself very 
easily to the more popular forms of humorous reoresentations. 



XLVm. ASSIMILATION AND HUMOR. 

There are many discussions of the ludicrous, but none are ade- 
quate. The sense of the ridiculous is a kind of instinct, — an 
" example of unconscious reasoning." Some have taken great pains 
to explain that even judgment is the fundamental requisite of wit 
and humor; but the act of humorous perception is more or less 
a spontaneous, even an unconscious, process; it is, at any rate, 
immediate. The rendering of humor is important for the devel- 
opment of vocal expression. It secures free play in the action of 
the mind; it shows us the necessity of abandon, and of trusting 
in instinct. 

The rendering of humor requires instinct, naturalness and sim- 
plicity, flexibility and elasticity of the voice, and that mercurial 
temperament which is the fundamental cause of flexibility and 
versatility in expression. True humor, especially, requires assim- 
ilation. It is always associated with the power to see things from 
various points of view, and with that joyous element in our 
nature which brings ease and freedom of action in the use of the 
voice, stimulates the circulation, quickens the breathing, opens 
the throat, and establishes right conditions of tone. It gives us 



ASSIMILATION AND HUMOR. 329 

also breadth of sympathy and keenness of sensibility. A sense of 
the incongruous prevents us from making blunders, and indirectly 
develops a sense of harmony and taste. 

The rendering of noble humor also develops the power to read 
pathos. It is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and 
one who has no sense of the ridiculous is pretty sure to take the 
step. The study of humor makes us 'conscious of the step, and 
so prevents us from taking it, and removes the fear of being 
ridiculous, which is one of the common causes of lack of power 
to express deep feeling. 

There are special cases for which the study of humor is very 
necessary, as in the case of clergymen, or of any one who by his 
profession is tempted towards a special line of emotion. A clergy- 
man is apt to take life so seriously, that his voice and vocal 
expression assume a cadence which becomes a mannerism. To 
prevent this, he needs to practise a great variety of emotions, so 
as to develop the gamut of vocal modulations and a vocabulary of 
his natural languages. 

In the next place, the study of humor develops sympathy, or, 
at least, this is true of the higher kinds. There are, of course, 
kinds of wit which are cynical and sarcastic and to be avoided. 
The noblest humor is associated with the highest literature, and 
the reductio ad absurdum is one of the most effective means of 
progress in every age. 

THE ORIGIN OF ROAST PIG. 

Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, for the first seventy thousand 
ages ate their meal raw. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their 
great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where 
he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the 
Cooks' Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roast- 
ing, or rather boiling (which I take to be the elder brother) was accident- 
ally discovered in the manner following. The swineherd Ho-ti, having 
gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect 
mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a 
great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of 
his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, 
which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of 
their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. What was of much 



330 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine 
in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over 
the East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the 
utmost consternation, as you may think, — not so much for the sake of the 
tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a 
few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for 
the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his 
father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of 
those untimely sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent 
which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from 1 — not 
from the burnt cottage — he had smelt that smell before; indeed, this 
was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred 
through the negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less 
did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premoni- 
tory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew 
not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were 
any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he 
applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs 
of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first 
time in his life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had 
known it) he tasted — crackling ! Again he felt and fumbled at the 
pig. It did not burn him so much now ; still he licked his fingers from 
a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding 
that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious ; 
and surrendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing 
up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was 
cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire en- 
tered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and find- 
ing how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's 
shoulders, as thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more 
than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experi- 
enced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous - to any 
inconveniences he might feel to those remote quarters. 

" You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring ? Is it 
not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog's 
tricks, but you must be eating fire, and I know not whati What have 
you got there, I say ? " 

" father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt 
pig eats." 

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he 
cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig. 



ASSIMILATION AND HUMOR. 331 

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon 
raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser 
half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, " Eat, eat, 
eat the burnt pig, father, only taste — Lord ! " — with such-like bar- 
barous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke. 

Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, 
wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural 
young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done 
his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted 
some of its flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for pre- 
tence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion, both 
father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never left off till they 
had despatched all that remained of the litter. 

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the neigh- 
bours would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable 
wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat which 
God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was 
observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than 
ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break 
out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the sow 
farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be in a blaze ; and Ho-ti 
himself, which was the more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, 
seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length they were 
watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and son summoned 
to take their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize town. Evi- 
dence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in court, and ver- 
dict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged that 
some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood accused, might be 
handed into the box. He handled it, and they all handled it ; and 
burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, 
and Nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against 
the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever 
given, — to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, 
reporters, and all present, — without leaving the box, or any manner of 
consultation whatever, they brought in a verdict of Not Guilty. 

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity 
of the decision ; and when the court was dismissed, went privily, and 
bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few 
days his Lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The thing 
took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fire in every 
direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. 



332 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter 
and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of 
architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this 
custom of firing houses continued, till, in process of time, a sage arose, 
like our Locke, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed 
of any other animal, might be cooked without the necessity of consum- 
ing a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a grid- 
iron. Roasting by the string or spit came in a century or two later, I 
forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, do the most useful and 
seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way among mankind. 



GEMINI AND VIRGO. 

Some vast amount of years ago, ere all my youth had vanish'd from me, 

A boy it was my lot to know, whom his familiar friends called Tommy. 

I love to gaze upon a child ; a young bud bursting into blossom ; 

Artless as Eve, yet unbeguiled, and agile as a young opossum ; 

And such was he. A calm brow'd lad, yet mad, at moments, as a hatter ; 

"Why hatters as a race are mad I never knew, nor does it matter. 

He was what nurses call a "limb ; " one of those small misguided creatures, 

Who, tho' their intellects are dim, are one too many for their teachers ; 

And, if you asked of him to say what twice ten was, or three times seven, 

He 'd glance (in quite a placid way) from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 

And smile, and look politely round, to catch a casual suggestion ; 

But make no effort to propound any solution of the question. 

And so not much esteemed was he of the authorities ; and therefore 

He fraternized by chance with me, needing a somebody to care for. 

And three fair summers did we twain live (as they say) and love together ; 

And bore by turns the wholesome cane till our young skins became as leather ; 

And carved our names on every desk, and tore our clothes, and inked our collars ; 

And looked unique and picturesque, but not, it may be, model scholars. 

We did much as we chose to do ; we 'd never heard of Mrs. Grundy ; 

All the theology we knew was that we might n't play on Sunday ; 

And all the general truths, that cakes were to be bought at four a penny, 

And that excruciating aches resulted if we ate too many ; 

And seeing ignorance is bliss, and wisdom consequently folly, 

The obvious result is this — that our two lives were very jolly. 

At last the separation came. Real love at that time was the fashion ; 

And by a horrid chance, the same young thing was, to us both, a passion. 

Old Poser snorted like a horse ; his feet were large, his hands were pimply, 

His manner, when excited, coarse : — but Miss P. was an angel simply. 

She was a blushing, gushing thing ; all — more than all — my fancy painted ; 

Once, when she helped me to a wing of goose, I thought I should have fainted. 

The people said that she was blue ; but I was green , and loved her dearly. 

She was approaching thirty-two ; and I was then eleven, nearly. 



ASSIMILATION AND LANGUAGES. 333 

I did not love as others do (none ever did that I 've heard tell of) ; 

My passion was a byword through the town she was, of course, the belle of ; 

Oh sweet — as to the toil-worn man the far-off sound of rippling river; 

As to cadets in Hindostan the fleeting remnant of their liver — 

To me was Anna ; dear as gold that tills the miser's sunless coffers 

As to the spinster, growing old, the thought, the dream, that she had offers. 

I 'd sent her little gifts of fruit ; I 'd written lines to her as Venus ; 

I 'd sworn unflinchingly to shoot the man who dared to come between us ; 

And it was you, my Thomas, you, the friend in whom my soul confided, 

Who dared to gaze on her — to do, I may say, much the same as I did. 

One night I saw him squeeze her hand ; there was no doubt about the matter ; 

I said he must resign, or stand my vengeance — and he chose the latter. 

We met, we "planted " blows on blows; we fought as long as we were able ; 

My rival had a bottle -nose, and both my speaking eyes were sable. 

When the school-bell cut short our strife Miss P. gave both of us a plaster ; 

And in a week became the wife of Horace Nibbs, the writing-master. . . . 

I loved her then — I 'd love her still, only one must not love Another's ; 

But thou and I, my Tommy, will, when we again meet, meet as brothers. 

It may be that in age one seeks peace only ; that the blood is brisker 

In boys' veins than in theirs whose cheeks are partially obscured by whisker ; 

Or that the growing ages steal the memories of past wrongs from us. 

But this is certain — that I feel most friendly unto thee, Thomas ! 

And wheresoe'er we meet again, on this or that side the equator, 

If I 've not turned teetotaller then, and have wherewith to pay the waiter, 

To thee I '11 drain the modest cup, ignite with thee the mild Havannah ; 

And we will waft, while liquoring up, forgiveness to the heartless Anna. 

C. S. Calverley. 

XLIX. ASSIMILATION AND LANGUAGES. 

There are three stages in the mastery of a foreign language : we 
may be able to read it; when more familiar we may be able by 
conscious translation to speak it ; but we have truly mastered a 
language only when we are able to think in its forms. 

The great advantage in studying a language not our own, accord- 
ing to John Stuart Mill, is that " it prevents us from mistaking 
words for things." Plato and Aristotle, he said, made this mistake 
in their philosophy, — an error due to the fact that they had 
mastered no language aside from their own. 

There is an important principle here that applies not only to the 
study of language, but to that of art. The painter who merely 
paints is apt to cease to be an artist. He fails to realize the 



334 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

importance of feeling; his art becomes a mere reproduction of 
natural objects. The musician who merely plays never rises higher 
than a mechanical performer in an orchestra. A man becomes 
an artist only by being able to express himself in more than one 
way. 

The principle, however, applies with great force to the relation 
of thought to words. Very frequently, however, languages are 
so mechanically ind artificially studied that the benefit spoken of 
by Mill is not realized. Students often develop a mere verbal 
memory. They merely study the language by grammatical rules. 
They aim only to understand the meaning embodied, and fail to 
enter into its spirit. Repeated attempts have been made to reform 
such mechanical methods in the study of languages, and to find a 
way to induce students to think in another tongue. 

One of the most important aids to this end is the reciting of the 
best passages in the literature of the language we are studying. 
Vocal expression or recitation compels the student really to think 
in the language he speaks. He cannot stop with a mere under- 
standing of the words. With any true conception of expression, 
he meditates over the passage which he is to recite, and endeavors 
to create imaginatively its successive conceptions and situations, 
and to assimilate its spirit. At any rate, he is compelled to master 
more completely the words, and is brought into a more immediate 
relationship to the processes of thought beneath them. He is 
compelled to use them as agents in the expression of thought and 
feeling. Every language has a melody of its own, and vocal 
expression will be of great advantage in conquering the difficulty 
of " accent." The student will find that this accent does not 
consist in the pronunciation of individual sounds or words; but 
that it is the manifestation of peculiar processes of thought and 
point of view, the genius which lies behind the words. 

It has been well said that all great poetry implies utterance. It 
is the lack of true vocal expression, without doubt, that causes 
the roughness of modern poetry, and makes the difference between 
modern and ancient verse. The great poets have always bewailed 
the separation. Most of the great poets have hummed over and 
recited their own poetry. Tennyson's recitation of his own poems 



ASSIMILATION AND LANGUAGES. 335 

is no doubt one of the chief causes of the smoothness of his verse. 
The greatest lovers of Browning wish at times that he had hummed 
over his lines. They would certainly have been smoother. 

If this be true of the poetry of our own language, it is also true 
of the poetry of a foreign tongue. We can hardly feel quantity 
and rhythmic movement without vocal expression. The pronun- 
ciation of a foreign language is one of the highest attainments. 
Practice in the recitation of the masterpieces of other languages 
will bring us more immediately into contact with the true spirit of 
poetry and the true genius of the language. 

Besides, this " melody, " as Beethoven said to Bettina, " gives 
sensuous existence to poetry; for does not the meaning of a poem 
become embodied in melody 1 " George Henry Lewes in his " Life 
of Goethe " has some valuable suggestions upon the inadequacy of 
all translations of poetry. " Words in poetry, " he says, " are not, as 
w r ords in prose, simple representatives of objects and ideas : they 
are part of an .organic whole ; they are tones in the harmony. Sub- 
stitute other parts and the result is a monstrosity, as if an arm were 
substituted for a wing; substitute other tones, and you produce a 
discord. . . . Words are not only symbols of objects, but centres 
of associations; and their suggestiveness depends partly on their 
sound. " If all this be true, vocal expression is necessary to the 
adequate comprehension or feeling of any poem, and especially 
when that poem is in a foreign language. 

This method of studying other languages is also a great help to 
vocal expression. It develops the altruistic instinct; it exercises 
the mind in mastering another point of view, and so develops 
assimilation and dramatic instinct. It exercises a greater number 
of faculties and with greater intensity of action than the recitation 
of our own language. It makes the reader more careful, more 
self-possessed. It not only exercises the organs of articulation and 
thus improves the utterance, but it gives breadth of culture. It 
quickens the imagination and sympathy. 

Not only should a student study and recite a poem in its native 
language with the true spirit of that language ; it is also very 
important for him to make translations, and to recite these also. 
This will give him a subtle discrimination of words, It will 



336 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

enable him also to bring the results of the work he has done in 
another language into his own mother-tongue. The hard work of 
translation will furnish a deep realization of the nature of poetic 
expression. While it may not be possible to translate a poem 
adequately, reciting it in its native language will give the translator 
a better feeling of its metre and rhythm. Vocal expression will 
also assist criticism to find the weakness of any translation. 

LA VIE. LIFE. 

La vie est vaine ; Vain, vain is life ; 

Un peu l'amour, Some love and play, 

Un peu de haine — Some hate and strife 

Et puis — bonjour ! And then — good-day ! 

La vie est breve ; Short, short life seems ; 

Un peu d'espoir, Some hope and light, 

Un peu de reve — A few bright dreams — 

Et puis — bonsoir ! And then — good-night ! 
Leon Montenacken. 



A little work, a little play 

To keep us going — and so, good-day ! 

A little warmth, a little light 

Of love's bestowing — and so, good-night ! 

A little fun to match the sorrow 

Of each day's growing — and so, good morrow ! 

A little trust that when we die 

We reap our sowing ! — And so, good- by ! 



Du Maurier. 



ERLKONIG. 

Wer reitet so spat durch Nacht und Wind ? 
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind' ; 
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm ; 
Er fasst ihn sicher, er halt ihn warm. 

" Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht ? 
" Sieh'st, Vater, du den Erlkonig nicht ? 
Den Erlenkonig mit Kron' und Schweif ? " 
" Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif. " 

" Du liebes Kind, komm, geh' mit mir ! 
Gar schone Spiele spiel' ich mit dir : 
Manch' bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand ; 
Meine Mutter hat manch gulden Gewand." 



ASSIMILATION AND LANGUAGES. 337 

" Mem Vater, mem Vater, und hbrest du nicht, 
"Was Erlenkonig mir leise verspricht ?'" 
" Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind ! 
In diirren Blattern sauselt der Wind." 

" Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir geh'n ? 
Meine Tochter sollen dich warten schon ; 
Meine Tochter fiihren den nachtlichen Reili'n, 
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein." 

" Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort 

Erlkonig's Tochter am diistern Ort ? " 

" Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh' es genau ; 

Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau." 

"Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schone Gestalt ; 
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch' ich Gewalt." 
" Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt fasst er mich an ; 
Erlkouig hat mir ein Leid's gethan." 

Dem Vater grauset 's, er reitet geschwind ; 

Er halt in den Armen das achzende Kind ; 

Erreicht den Hof mit Miih' und Noth ; 

In seinen Armen das Kind war todt. 

Goethe. 



THE ERL-KING. 

Who rides so late through a night so wild ? 
It is a father holding his child ; 
He tenderly clasps him with his arm, 
To hold him safe and to keep him warm. 

" My boy, why thus dost thou hide thine eye ? " 
" See'st thou not, father, the Erl-King nigh, 
The Erl-King with his crown and his train ? " 
" My son, it is only the mist from the rain." 

" Come, lovely boy, come, go with me, 
Such beautiful plays I will play with thee. 
The flowers are bright with colors untold, 
And my mother has for thee robes of gold." 

" My father, my father, and do you not hear 
What Erl-King promises low in my ear ? '* 
" Be still, draw closer, my child, my own ; 
Among the dead leaves the wind makes moan." 

11 lovely boy, wilt thou come and go ? 
My daughters are waiting their sports to show. 
They nightly lead their bands in glee ; 
They will play and dance and sing with thee." 
22 



338 



ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 



" My father, my father, and see you not there 
His daughters glide through the misty air ? " 
" My child, my child, I see it all plain ; 
The willows wave and gleam through the rain.' 

" I love thee ; thy form has charmed me so, 
That, be you not willing, I force you to go." 
" father, my father, so fast he lays hold ; 
Erl-King has seized me with grasp so cold." 

The father groans, like the wind he rides wild, 
And clasps still closer the suffering child. 
He reaches home in doubt and dread : 
Clasped close in his arms the child was dead. 



Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam im Norden auf kahler Hbh'. 
Ihn schlafert ; mit weisser Decke umhiillen ihn Eis und Schnee. 
Er traumt von einer Palme, die fern im Morgenland 
Einsam und schweigend trauert auf brennender Felsenwand. 



Heine. 



THE TOMB AND THE ROSE. 



La tombe dit k la rose : 

— Des pleurs dont l'aube t'arrose 
Que fais-tu, fleur des amours ? 
La rose dit a la tombe : 

— Que fais-tu de ce qui tombe 
Dans ton gouffre ouvert toujours ? 

La rose dit : Tom beau sombre, 

De ces pleurs je fais dans 1' ombre 

Un parfura d'ambre et de miel. 

La tombe dit : Fleur plaintive, 

De chaque ame qui m'arrive 

Je fais un ange du ciel. 

Victor Hugo. 



"Fair rose," the dark tomb said, 
" Dawn's tears above thee shed — 
What dost thou with them all ?" 
The rose said to the tomb : 
" And thou, gulf of gloom, 
With all that in thee fall ? " 

The rose replied : ' ' Dark tomb 
Those tears to sweet perfume 
I change while hid they lie." 
The tomb replied: " I take 
Each soul that comes and make 
An angel of the sky." 



WANDERER'S NIGHT SONG. 

Ueber alien Gipfeln 

1st Huh, 

In alien Wipfeln 

S purest du 

Kaum einen Hauch ; 

Die Vogelein schweigen im Walde : 

Warte nur, balde 

Ruhest du auch. 

Goethe, 



O'er all the hill-tops 

Is quiet now, 

In all the tree-tops 

Hearest thou 

Hardly a breath ; 

The birds are asleep in the trees : 

Wait ; soon like these 

Thou, too, shalt rest. 

Longfellow. 



FAULTS AND DANGERS IN DRAMATIC EXPRESSION. 339 

As illustrations for this exercise, " Erlkonig, " by Goethe, is 
given in the original and in a translation. It is most dramatic, and 
well suited for recitation on account of the transitions, variety of 
emotions, subjective and objective elements, and intensity of feel- 
ing. It is simple in thought and diction, and hence very difficult 
to translate. A little poem in French is given, with a literal 
translation, side by side, and an adaptation of it by Du Maurier ; 
also a short poem by Victor Hugo, with a translation. 



L. FAULTS AND DANGERS IN DRAMATIC EXPRESSION. 

On account of the universal misconception of the nature of dra- 
matic instinct, there are many dangers into which a student is apt 
to fall , and many faults which he is liable to contract. 

In the first place, many students have no appreciation whatever 
of the function of imagination in their work; sometimes they have 
contempt for the sublimest poetry, and refuse to do anything but 
rehearse plays or read pieces, usually of a low type. 

Imagination is the first step toward assimilation. It is a spon- 
taneous faculty ; it creates, it realizes for each individual in its own 
way. It does not, like memory, merely receive impressions and 
mechanically reproduce them; it is the union of thought and 
passion ; it is the mind of the heart ; it is full of life, and is hence 
the essential element in dramatic instinct. There is little assimi- 
lation in memory, but there can be no imagination without assimi- 
lation. Imagination manifests as well as represents. It never 
imitates, — it identities; it rouses passion and life. 

Again, in the development of dramatic instinct, there is apt to 
be too much objective attention to mere differences in expression. 
There is frequently too great a desire for variety. The differences 
must be differences of situation, differences of thought, differences 
of feeling. Variety for the sake of variety is chaos. The only 
genuine variety is that which is expressive of unity; true variety 
is the result of unity, and of unity only. There must be direct 
opposition and harmonious relationship between each successive 
situation. It is unity in the midst of variety that is the secret of 
all beauty and the governing principle of all art; but it is especially 
the principle of dramatic art. 



340 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

The student is liable to seek merely for skill, not for assimila- 
tion. He is apt to study objective differences and to imitate these. 
Thus imitation is substituted for assimilation ; desiring representa- 
tive contrasts and transitions, he seeks for them mechanically. 

Again, students desire to rehearse dialogues merely. They 
learn every part mechanically, with little study or conception of 
character, little or no assimilation of the artistic spirit of the play, 
or the motives of the character they are to impersonate. They 
rehearse together, and trust for suggestion from stage managers or 
from the action of other characters. There is little characteriza- 
tion or dramatic instinct at present upon the stage. Rarely do 
we find such genuine assimilation as in Joseph Jefferson's Rip 
Van Winkle, " Booth's " Hamlet, " or the elder Sal villi's " Othello. " 
All dramatic expression is the manifestation of thought and 
passion. The processes of the mind must be revealed. 

Another danger is the failure to distinguish between expression 
and exhibition. Dramatic art is considered as physical action 
simply. There is thus a failure to distinguish between show or 
theatrical display, and true expression. Dramatic art is directly 
antagonistic to show ; it is not exhibition, but is a revelation of the 
mind, of spiritual force and life and movement. 

Again, students often think that everything dramatic belongs 
to action, and hence endeavor to give exaggerated movements 
which are antagonistic to nature. They fail to realize that 
dramatic action is mental action ; that action is dramatic only when 
it reveals the man ; that dramatic action is not a superficial thing. 
In giving such transitions, for example, as these, there is no 
time allowed for the mind to act between the phrases, and hence 
the changes, if any are made, are mechanical, sudden, and 
unnatural. 

Hark ! how 'mid their revelry 
They raise the battle-cry ! — The clang of arms, 
And war, and victory for me ! Away 
With idle dreams ! Why, what to me are women ? 
Yet she — ah ! she is not like those at home, 
Loaded with clumsy ornaments, happy in bondage, 
With base caresses humbly seeking favor 

Of their base lords. 
Ingomar. Knowles. 



FAULTS AND DANGERS IN DRAMATIC EXPRESSION. 341 

Again, there is a failure to recognize the fact that all dramatic 
expression is instinctive. We speak of dramatic instinct, and not 
of dramatic reasoning. There is an unconscious element in all 
dramatic expression. It is not even wholly voluntary • there are 
involuntary elements. Dramatic action is the result of assimila- 
tion, of sympathetic identification of ourselves with some idea, 
situation, or character. It depends upon imaginative insight and 
instinct. 

Students often think that dramatic action consists in scenery, 
stage business, and odd make-ups ; but that only is dramatic which 
is intense and true. 

All true dramatic transitions are simple. Those writers, those 
speakers, who have been the most dramatic have been the 
simplest; declamatory speakers and stilted writers are never 
dramatic. Homeric simplicity, Shakespearian directness, and not 
oratorical display or declamation cause dramatic expression. Note, 
for example, Scott's " Maisie " (p. 349). How delicate, simple, 
and suggestive ; — these elements make it truly dramatic. 

The chief requisites, then, of dramatic vocal expression are sim- 
plicity, genuineness, a vivid imaginative realization of the spirit 
of the thought. The whole nature must be fully responsive to 
every idea, thought, situation, and character. 

There is a universal misunderstanding as to what is dramatic. 
When a man reads the Scriptures, for example, with very sudden 
transitions and exaggerated representation or personation of each 
character, he is called too dramatic. The fact is, he is not dra- 
matic at all, but theatric. He employs imitation, not assimilation. 

One important danger in dramatic work is the substitution of 
the lower power of representation for the higher one of manifes- 
tation; the elimination of the imaginative, of the sympathetic 
elements, and the introduction of the merely imitative. 

Again, there is danger in certain emotions. Many have a mis- 
conception of the nature of assuming another character. Hence 
their emotions are not genuine. They think that to be dramatic 
is to be somebody else and not themselves; they entirely over- 
look the fact that the very first requisite to being truly dramatic 
is to be able to be one's self, and that no one can really and 



342 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

truly assimilate another character until he has a certain conscious 
realization of his own. The higher the form of dramatic art the 
more this is true. The reader or the speaker must often be himself, 
and express himself as the chief character. He must be a sympa- 
thetic spectator of every event, and reveal his own point of view 
in contrast to that of others. 

One of the great mistakes of public readers is that they elim- 
inate all normal characters and accentuate the abnormal. This 
produces one-sidedness. The reader or impersonator in the 
arrangement of his program, or his abridgment of a play, must 
bear in mind that the abnormal has no place except in opposition 
to the normal, that the abnormal will itself fail to interest an 
audience deeply, if not directly contrasted with the normal. The 
high dramatic deals with the normal as well as with the abnormal. 
That is farce which deals with the abnormal alone. 

Render the following grotesque poem, giving the dialect and 
other peculiarities of the characters, but making the deep feeling 
and dramatic situation predominate over all objective elements. 

DANNY DEEVER. 

" What are the bugles blowin' for ? " said Files-on-Parade. 

" To turn you out, to turn you out," the Color-Sergeant said. 

" What makes you look so white, so white ?" said Files-on-Parade 

"I 'm dreadin' what I 've got to watch," the Color-Sergeant said. . 

For they 're hangin' Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play, 

The regiment 's in 'ollow square — they 're hangin' him to-day ; 

They 've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away, 

An' they 're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'. 

" What makes the rear-rank breathe so 'ard ? " said Files-on-Parade. 
" It's bitter cold, it's bitter cold," the Color-Sergeant said. 
" What makes that front rank man fall down ? " says Files-on-Parade. 
"A touch o' sun, a touch o' sun," the Color-Sergeant said. 

They are hangin' Danny Deever, they are marchin' of 'im round, 

They 'ave 'alted Danny Deever by 'is coffin on the ground ; 

An' Vll swing in 'arf a minute for a sneakin' shootin' hound — 

they 're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin' ! 

"'Is cot was right-'and cot to mine," said Files-on-Parade. 
"'E 's sleepin' out an' far to-night," the Color-Sergeant said. 
" I 've drunk 'is beer a score o' times," said Files-on-Parade. 
" 'E 's drinkin' bitter beer alone," the Color- Sergeant said. 






EMOTIONAL TRUTHFULNESS. 343 

They are hangin' Danny Deever, you must mark 'im to 'is place, 
For 'e shot a comrade sleepin' — you must look 'im in the face ; 
Nine 'undred of 'is county an' the regiment's disgrace, 
While they 're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'. 

" What 's that so black agin the sun ? " said Files-on- Parade. 

H It's Danny fightin' 'ard for life," the Color- Sergeant said. 

" What's that that whimpers over'ead ?" said Files-on-Parade. 

; ' It 's Danny's soul that 's passin' now," the Color-Sergeant said. 

For they 're done with Danny Deever, you can 'ear the quickstep play, 

The regiment 's in column, an' they 're marchin' us away ; 

Ho ! the young recruits are shakin', an' they'll want their beer to-day, 

After hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'. 

Rudyard Kipling. 



II. EMOTIONAL TRUTHFULNESS. 

It is easier to explain the nature of thought than of emotion. To 
find an adequate method of developing noble feeling is one of the 
most difficult problems of education. The same difficulty meets us 
in the vocal expression of emotion. 

Definiteness in emotional expression is not considered necessary 
by many. Those who are most punctilious in regard to pronun- 
ciation or the use of words, or who would condemn themselves 
very severely if they did not make an adequate definition of any 
thought, often fail to recognize the fact that they rarely, if ever, 
express a feeling with any truthfulness. Many educated men will 
read a psalm which is inherently joyous in a mournful tone, with- 
out any situation, and without any response to a true emotional 
point of view. 

Among speakers the command of emotion is very inadequate. 
Many of them have practically no feeling, but give everything from 
a neutral or negative point of view. Some have one emotion which 
colors every thought they express ; some have two, which alternate 
hi a crude and meaningless fashion. Many sway from one emo- 
tional condition into another, independent of thought. 

One method of developing the power to express emotion defi- 
nitely and truthfully is to secure genuineness and simplicity in 
transitions. There must be no pretence of feeling. Each thought, 
each successive conception of the mind, must be felt simply and 
directly, and given with the most truthful actions of the voice. 



344 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

The reader or speaker should especially avoid drifting. When 
once emotion has arisen, it is supreme for the time, and only by 
securing definite thought and imaginative action can the current of 
feeling be controlled and directed into new channels. Emotion acts 
naturally and re-acts rhythmically; hence the true imaginative or 
conceptive action of the mind causes variations in a current of 
emotion. 

Every emotion has one subtle characteristic. There mrJst be 
such an imaginative conception of a situation as will awaken feel- 
ing, and such genuine artistic insight as will enable the reader 
or speaker or actor to express definitely this one characteristic. 
This can be obtained only by careful, earnest, and long-continued 
practice. The expression of emotion must not be mechanical; it 
must be a free, natural, and spontaneous outflow. 

The combat deepens. On, ye Brave who rush to glory, or the grave ! 
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave, and charge with all thy chivalry ! 
Few, few shall part, where many meet ! The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 
And every turf beneath their feet shall be a soldier's sepulchre. 

Hohenlinden. Campbell. 

There is a tendency in the transition of emotion to make changes 
which are not true ; for example, in the preceding lines, there is no 
change of place ; it is the same battle ; only in the first lines, we 
are placed before the battle, and in the last two, after the battle. 
In the first two we sympathize with the heroic struggle, with the 
enthusiastic exhortation, we rejoice to see the march forward, we 
share the spirit of endeavor; but in the second, we gaze patheti- 
cally upon the fallen. 

Now, in reading these lines there will be a tendency to make the 
first scene large and the last small, to make the first declamatory 
and impersonal, the second limited and personal. The right 
rendering of both keeps the scene as large in one case as in the 
other. The picture does not change in size, — it only changes in 
character, causing thus a definite change in feeling. The imagina- 
tion is called upon to sustain certain elements and to change 
others. The tendency of an inartistic reader will be to change 
everything, and to give up the control of his power. This leads 
to chaotic and untruthful feeling and expression. 



EMOTIONAL TRUTHFULNESS. 345 

In every change of passion, there are certain continuous 
elements. A transition is like the wave of the sea : it is the same 
wave that rises and falls : there can be no true normal transition 
without sustaining certain conditions. Good art accents one 
specific change or action, which in this stanza is from sympathy 
with the struggle of the battle to sympathy for the dying; but the 
battle-field is the same, the number of men the same, while the 
heroic and intense control increases rather than diminishes. 

It is the manifestation of only one change, as in this illustration, 
which gives power to expression. If we give up the heroic 
element of the first, and give mere sadness in the second, the 
true character of the piece is spoiled. 

There is some such danger in all transitions, but especially in 
changing to sorrow. Sorrow tends to depression, and lack of 
control; hence there must be a special care to sustain the breadth 
and the nobility of the situation, and to preserve the intensity. 
Sadness is the passive characteristic of one who gives up to 
moods or feelings, but sorrow implies heroic struggle to carry a 
heavy burden. The first belongs to a weak character only, the 
second to a noble one. Everywhere we can find two things which 
are nearly alike, but which on closer examination are found to be 
wide apart. Only an expert can tell the difference between 
melted lead and melted silver ; brass may be so polished as to look 
for a moment like gold. The same is true with many emotions. 
The unthinking, unimaginative speaker or reader substitutes 
antagonism for earnestness, extravagance for spontaneity, pity for 
sympathy. Indignation is noble, anger ignoble. Love is the 
most exalted emotion of a human being, sentimentality one of 
the lowest. 

It is very important in the development of dramatic expression 
or truthfulness of feeling to practise the noblest emotions in 
contrast with those which are apparently akin to them, but are 
really widely apart. It is easy enough to come down a mountain; 
the difficulty is in climbing to the top. It is the expression of 
the normal and the noble that calls for the struggle ; the abnormal 
is easy. To bring the abnormal into direct opposition to the 
noblest experience is the work of an artist. 



346 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Cultivated taste or artistic appreciation carefully distinguishes 
emotions in tragedy from melodrama, comedy from farce or 
burlesque. Truthful expression of emotion demands a recognition 
of such distinctions on the part of the reader. 

What is the predominant emotion in the following Ballad of the 
Fleet? Is it heroism, melodramatic extravagance, or farcical 
caricature 1 Would a public reader be justified in using tones 
or movements which belong only to low characters and farcical 
situations 1 

THE REVENGE. 

At Flores in the Azores Sir Eichard Grenville lay, 
And a pinnace, like, a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away : 
" Spanish ships of war at sea ! we have sighted fifty-three ! " 
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard : " 'Fore God I am no coward ; 
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, 
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick. 
We are six ships of the line ; can we fight with fifty-three ? " 

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville : "I know you are no coward ; 

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. 

But I 've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore. 

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard, 

To these inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain." 

So Lord Howard pass'd away with five ships of war that day, 

Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven ; 

But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land 

Very carefully and slow, 

Men of Bideford in Devon, 

And we laid them on the ballast down below ; 

For we brought them all aboard, 

And they blest hixn in their pain, that they were not left to Spain, 

To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord. 

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight, 

And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight, 

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow. 

" Shall we fight or shall we fly ? 

Good Sir Richard, tell us now, 

For to fight is but to die ! 

There '11 be little of us left by the time this sun be set." 

And Sir Richard said again : " We be all good English men. 

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil, 

For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet." 



EMOTIONAL TRUTHFULNESS. 347 

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so 
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe, 
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below ; 
For half of her fleet to the right and half to the left were seen, 
And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between. 

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks and laugh'd, 
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft 
Running on and on, till delay' d 

By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons, 
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns, 
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd. 

And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud 

Whence the thunderbolt will fall 

Long and loud, 

Four galleons drew away 

From the Spanish fleet that day, 

And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, 

And the battle-thunder broke from them all. 

But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself and went 
Having that within her womb that had left her ill content ; 
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand, 
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers, 
And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears 
When he leaps from the water to the land. 

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, 
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three. 
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came, 
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame ; 
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame. 
For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more — 
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before ? 

For he said " Fight on ! fight on ! " 

Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck ; 

And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone, 

With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck, 

But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead, 

And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head, 

And he said " Fight on ! fight on ! " 

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea, 
And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring ; 
But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd that we still could sting, 
So they watch'd what the end would be. 



348 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

And we had not fought them in vain, 

But in perilous plight were we, 

Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain, 

And half of the rest of us maim'd for life 

In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife ; 

And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold, 

And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent ; 

And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side ; 

But Sir Richard cried in his English pride, 

"We have fought such a fight for a day and a night 

As may never be fought again ! 

We have won great glory, my men ! 

And a day less or more 

At sea or ashore 

We die — does it matter when ? 

Sink me the ship, Master Gunner — sink her, split her in twain ! 

Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain ! " 

And the gunner said, " Ay, ay," but the seamen made reply : 

" We have children, we have wives, 

And the Lord hath spared our lives. 

We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go ; 

We shall live to fight again, and to strike another blow." 

And the lion lay there dying, and they yielded to the foe. 

And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then, 
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last, 
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace ; 
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried : , 
" I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true ; 
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do : 
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die ! " 
And he fell upon their decks, and he died. 

And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true, 
And had hoi den the power and glory of Spain so cheap 
That he dared her with one little ship and his English few ; 
Was he devil or man ? He was devil for aught they knew, 
But they sank his body with honour down into the deep, 
And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew, 
And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her own ; 
When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from sleep, 
And the water began to heave and the weather to moan, 
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew, 
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew, 



EMOTIONAL TRUTHFULNESS. 349 

Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags, 

And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd navy of Spain, 

And the little Eevenge herself went down by the island crags 

To be lost evermore in the main. 

Tennyson. 

The earnest student will struggle to define carefully in his vocal 
expression differences between the low and the high in emotion. 
Vocal expression is the direct language of emotion; and one rea- 
son why feeling is so little understood, so much despised in ex- 
pression, is because its natural and direct expression is either so 
little or so carelessly studied. 

THE PRIDE OF YOUTH.* 

Proud Maisie is in the wood, walking, so early; 

Sweet Robin sits on the bush singing so rarely, 

" Tell me, thou bonny bird, when shall I marry me?" 

"When six braw gentlemen kirkward shall carry ye." 

" Who makes the bridal bed, birdie, say truly ? " 

— "The gray-headed sexton that delves the grave duly. 

The glowworm o'er grave and stone shall light thee steady ; 

The owl from the steeple sing welcome, proud lady." 

Sir W. Scott. 

The refinement and differentiation of the feelings is one of the 
highest characteristics of taste and culture in an individual, of 
advance in the civilization of a nation or a race ; hence, it is the 
most marked indication of noble expression in the speaker, reader, 
or actor. 

The practice of emotion must always be connected with imagi- 
native action. In expression, it is the imagination which chiefly 
acts as a stimulus to emotion. It is the power of the imagination 

1 Scott has given us nothing more complete and lovely than this little song, 
which unites simplicity and dramatic power to a wild-wood music of the rarest 
quality. No moral is drawn, far less any conscious analysis of feeling attempted: 
— the pathetic meaning is left to be suggested by the mere presentment of the 
situation. A narrow criticism has often named this, which may be called the 
Homeric manner, superficial, from its apparent simple facility; but first rate 
excellence in it is in truth one of the least commou triumphs of Poetry. — 
This style should be compared with what is not less perfect in its way, the 
searching out of inner feeling, the expression of hidden meanings, the revelation 
of the heart of Nature and of the Soul within the Soul, — the analytical method, 
in short, — most completely represented by Wordsworth and by Shelley. 

Palgrave. 



350 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

which elevates and ennobles the feeling. One hindrance to truth- 
ful feeling is vague, abstract, or unimaginative thinking. Truth- 
fulness of feeling depends upon simplicity and repose; emotion 
cannot be forced, nor can its expression be labored. 

There must be no exaggeration or effort. The attention and 
interest to successive ideas must be genuine, so that every transi- 
tion will be truthful. 

The various steps which have been laid down for the develop- 
ment of the imagination and of assimilation have aimed at secur- 
ing definiteness and truthfulness of feeling. If the steps are care- 
fully practised, little need be added regarding truthfulness of 
emotion. 

IH. ORIGINALITY. 

All the arts are one. They are but human endeavors to repre- 
sent or interpret nature ; hence the fundamental principles govern- 
ing them are the same. It is not so correct to speak of several 
arts, as of several forms of art. This identity of " life and law " 
in art enables the specific artistic value of any one art product to 
be tested. 

Vocal expression is an artistic act in the broad sense of the word. 
It calls into activity the whole man and requires especially imagi- 
nation and feeling. It is a human action which must be founded 
upon nature, but must be as ideal and noble as possible. It 
depends upon doing, and not merely upon knowing. Eor these 
reasons it belongs to the realm of artistic endeavor, and so its 
correctness and effectiveness must be judged by artistic laws. 

In fact, the laws of art apply with more force to vocal expression 
than to other arts because these laws are derived from the direct 
study of the universal qualities of nature, and vocal expression is 
more intimately connected with nature than other arts. Some 
forms of art have more mechanical means or are more limited 
by materials, and hence show less direct application of the laws of 
nature. 

Among the principles of art one has been named originality or 
spontaneity; but by this is not meant oddity, either in action, 
structure, or form. It means that the process is from within 



ORIGINALITY. 351 

outward; that all the external accidents are the result of internal 
impulses, so that every expression has a character of its own. 
" The construction, " says Professor Hudson, of literary structure, 
" must proceed from the heart outward, not the other way, and 
proceed in virtue of the inward life, not by any surface aggrega- 
tion of parts, or by any outward principle or rule. In organic 
nature, every plant, every animal, however vast is the number of 
its species, is so kept from novelty and singularity, has an individ- 
ual life of its own, whieh life is and must be original. It is the 
development from the germ, and the process of development is 
vital and works by selection and assimilation of matter in accord- 
ance with its inward nature. And so in art. The work to be 
original must grow from what the workman has inside of him and 
what he sees in Nature and natural faets around him, and not by 
imitation of what others have done for him. So growing, the 
work will, to be sure, take specific form and character. Neverthe- 
less, it will have the elements of originality, too, in the right sense 
of the term, because it jvili have originated from the author's 
mind, just as the offspring originates from the parent; and the 
result will be not apparent superficial virtue, whieh is indeed a 
vice, but a solid, genuine, substantial virtue. That is, the thing 
will be just what it means, and will mean just what it says. 
Moreover, the greatness of the work, if it have any, will be more 
or less hidden in the order and temperance and harmony of the 
parts ; so that the work will keep growing larger and richer to 
you, as you become familiar with it, whereas in the case of the 
thing made in an unoriginal way at a distance it will seem larger 
than it is, and will keep shrinking and warping as you draw 
nearer to it, and perhaps when you get fairly into it, will prove to 
be no substance at all, but only a mass of shrinking vapor, and if 
you undertake to grasp it, your hands will go through it as through 
a shadow." 

Whatever words may be used to name this quality of art, it 
must be universally recognized as one of the first elements. 
Coleridge, in speaking of the form of Shakespeare's dramas and of 
the mistakes of the superficial critics of the past who objected to 
the form of Shakespeare's drama, has said : " The form is mechanic, 



352 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

when on any given material we impress a predetermined form, 
not necessarily arising out of the properties of the material; as 
when to a mass of wet clay we give whatever shape we wish it to 
retain when hardened. The organic form, on the other hand, is 
innate ; it shapes as it develops itself from within, and the fulness 
of its development is one and the same with the perfection of its 
outward form. Nature, the prime genial artist, inexhaustible in 
diverse powers, is equally inexhaustible in forms : each exterior is 
the physiognomy of the being within, — its true nature reflected 
and thrown out from the concave mirror. " 

Schlegel has also said in reference to the same subject : " Form 
is mechanical when it is impressed upon any piece of matter by an 
outward operation, as an accidental addition without regard to the 
nature of the thing; as, for example, when we give any form at 
pleasure to a soft mass, to be retained after induration. Organic 
form , on the contrary, is innate ; it unfolds itself from within, and 
attains its determinate character along with the full development 
of the germ. Such forms are found in nature universally, wher- 
ever living powers are in action. And in Art, — as well as in Nature, 
the supreme artist, — all genuine forms are organic, that is, are 
determined by the quality of the work. In short, the form is no 
other than a significant exterior, the physiognomy of a thing, — 
when not defaced by disturbing accidents, the speaking physiog- 
nomy, — which bears true witness of its hidden essence." 

In every form of art there must be a suggestion of inward life. 
In nature all genuine forces are organic ; that is, determined by an 
inner process. The external is not determined by the mechanical 
shaping or elimination, but seems to be an outgrowth. This is true 
of the expression of life and force in the universe. No two objects 
in nature are entirely alike, — no two leaves, no two flowers. 
Everything that grows has peculiar characteristics of its own. 

There is no form of art or expression where this principle is in 
more need of application than in vocal expression. Imitation, as 
has been shown, is here most tempting, but most out of place. 
Delivery in vocal expression in its very nature is a direct revela- 
tion of the process and life of the personality of each individual 
man. 



UNITY. 353 

The style of men in writing may differ, but their style in 
delivery differs much more. Great artists paint differently, but 
no two people speak alike in conversation. It is that form of art 
where the mechanical is least applicable, and where the natural 
and spontaneous, the original and free, are the most important; 
but unfortunately where mechanical uniformity is often sought for 
and all originality eliminated. 

' Delivery is in its nature personal and free ; and wherever there 
is a similarity between two persons in delivery, imitation or a 
mechanical method is to be suspected, and at any rate weakness is 
always the result. 

It can be seen at once, therefore, that this principle of art is 
the most adequate means of testing assimilation. Whenever 
there is a mere representation of words, or a mere presentation of 
elements which have been aggregated in some way, monotony is 
the result. But the very moment there is direct assimilation of 
the truth, whenever the thought is really in the possession of the 
mind, the process by which the mind produces and feels it, has its 
immediate effect upon delivery. 

Assimilation is thus the most direct road to genuineness, truth- 
fulness, and naturalness. It must be the first and the last endeavor 
of the student. 



Lin. UNITY. 

In Nature all force and all life are related to a centre ; and as art is 
founded upon the processes of Nature, organic unity must be its 
predominant law. Every good work of art must centre in itself, 
and must not appear to be a fragment or part of something else ; 
it must have the appearance of a living organism. It is only by 
the sympathetic relationship of parts, that art or expression of any 
form is possible. Each detail must not only have a force and 
meaning of its own, it must also contribute to the meaning of the 
whole. All parts must unite to produce one impression. If some 
part of a building seems to have no organic connection with the 
whole, if the removal of this part would seem to improve the effect, 
then the building is inartistic. Details which are unnecessary to 
the general impression are elements of weakness. 

23 



354 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

Every part of a true work of art seems to be incapable of change. 
Every word in a beautiful poem seems to be the inevitable result 
of a hidden impulse of life. Any part of a picture that gives the 
impression of a spot is bad. Even something which, in itself, is 
beautiful, when it calls too much attention to itself, aside from the 
real centre of the whole, violates the fundamental law of artistic 
expression. 

THE SONNET. 

Scorn not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned, 
Mindless of its just honours ; with this key 
Shakespeare unlocked his heart ; the melody 
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; 
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; 
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief; 
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf 
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 
His visionary brow : a glow-worm lamp, 
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery land 
To struggle through dark ways ; and, when a damp 
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand 
The Thing became a trumpet ; whence he blew 
Soul-animating strains — alas, too few ! 

Wordsworth. 

" Here, " says Prof. Henry N. Hudson, of this sonnet, " we 
have a place for everything and everything in its place. There is 
nothing involved, nothing ajar. The parts are not only each true 
and good and beautiful in themselves, but each is helpful to the 
others, and all to the author's purpose. Every allusion, every 
image, every word, tells of the furtherance of his aim. There need 
nothing be added : there must nothing be taken away. The argu- 
ment at every step is clear and strong. The poem begins, proceeds, 
and ends just as it ought. The understanding, the imagination, 
the ear, are satisfied with the result. " 

This principle or law of unity applies with special force to 
all forms of vocal expression. It contains the greatest variety 
of actions, mental, emotional, and physical; and the mind may 
pass from extreme explosion to prostration, yet all must be ex- 
pressed, and expressed in unity. Delivery is the union of three 
diverse languages, — words, tones, and actions. Each of these is 



UNITY. 355 

also complex, and produced by a great variety of agents and modu- 
lations. The pantomimic element, for example, uses the eye, the 
feet, the hand, and the face, the torso and the head, the whole 
body, in short. If any one of these many agents is inconsistent 
in its action with the others, the whole expression is destroyed. 
Expression is possible only by their harmonious co-operation; 
whatever is unessential is not only unnecessary but positively injur- 
ious. Again, in vocal expression, inflection, the texture and color 
of the voice, the changes of pitch, and the degrees of loudness and 
rhythmic movement must all be brought into unity, or one modu- 
lation witnesses against the truthfulness of the others. So potent 
are the natural languages of tone and action that they may wholly 
belie the statement of the words, and in every such case, the 
instincts of men take the testimony of the natural languages in 
preference to that of words. 

Again, unity depends not only upon the right relation of all 
parts, but upon a correspondence in the degree of activity. The 
degree of expression in the eye, for example, must justify the 
animation of the hand and the movement of the whole body upon 
the feet, the degree of change of pitch must justify the extent of 
the pause: the abruptness of the inflection must be consistent 
with the color of the tone. 

Expression is not only complex in its simultaneous actions, — it 
is an art in time, that is, the elements do not change together; 
they have unity of movement. In fact, unity is chiefly gained by 
a right sequence of ideas and situations, and succession of actions 
or modulations. 

To measure all these elements and to bring them by mechanical 
rule into organic unity is beyond the possibility of any human 
being. However plausible such a method may be, the experience 
of the race has shown it to be artificial and in violation of the 
principles of true vocal art. If vocal expression were a mechanical 
art, such a method might have place; but since it reveals the 
highest flights of imagination, the subtlest and noblest feeling, it 
must of all arts be the most spontaneous. 

The only true method of securing unity and harmony in vocal 
expression is by genuine dramatic and imaginative assimilation. 



356 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

The agents are too numerous, their actions too complex, the 
muscles to be controlled too varied, and often too unconscious and 
even involuntary, to be regulated and controlled in the same way 
that a piano player performs upon the keys. Dramatic action 
is always associated with dramatic instinct, and is a natural and 
not an artificial modulation of the agents of expression. The 
human body is a natural organism, united to which the soul comes 
into the world, and to the use of which it is impelled spon- 
taneously. It is not a mechanism constructed by the art of man, 
which the performer must learn to play upon by laborious and 
conscious steps. The method of nature is direct; the central life 
must predominate over all, or there can be no unity. The imagi- 
native and dramatic assimilation by which the thought and experi- 
ence of the race are made a part of the living force of one human 
being, and every faculty and power of the speaker quickened into 
life, and every part of the body and every modulation of the 
voice trained to respond to the thinking and feeling soul, is the 
only method by which unity of expression can be obtained. 

Unity has its beginning in the human soul. There are three 
elemental acts of man's being, — thinking, feeling, and choosing. 
The perfect man, according to Hegel, is the one in whom " thought 
and emotion are balanced by will." Unity and balance of these 
three elemental principles of a human being lie at the foundation 
of unity in expression. 

These are often called "the three natures of man." This is a 
mistake. They are not isolated, but united. " The mind think- 
ing is intellect; the mind feeling is sensibility; and the mind 
choosing is will." Still, perverted expression essentially discon- 
nects them. Where there is a lack of any imaginative realization 
or assimilation, there is always one-sided expression of some form. 
Thought and emotion are not balanced. The will is isolated, and 
the man is mechanical; or thinking, and he is didactic and cold; 
or emotion, and he drifts, whines, or rants. In perfect expression 
the three are always in equipoise. The true speaker has the 
power to make any one of them predominate at any moment, but 
at the same time to keep the other two present in subordinate 
relations. 



UNITY. 357 

The various modulations of the body and of the voice have 
direct correspondence with these three elemental powers of being, 
— for example, inflection is more immediately the servant of 
man's rational nature; it reveals the process of thought. Rhyth- 
mic pulsation or touch manifests more the vital nature of man, 
while tone-color expresses more immediately the higher spiritual 
nature. These and other elements of vocal expression must be 
brought into harmonious co-operation. In noble expression, they 
all unite to cause one impression. 

The highest unity can result only after the development or 
differentiation of all forms of expression. No element of the nat- 
ural language can discharge the function of another; each has a 
function of its own, and must be trained to discharge this effect- 
ually. Then all can be harmoniously united. Unity implies 
diversity; only opposites can be united. The two hands are most 
unlike as well as most like, and hence are capable of unity. At 
every point they are in direct opposition to each other. 

There are two great hindrances to unity, — variety for the sake 
of. variety, and sameness. There is no unity where there is mere 
oneness or homogeneity. Unity is opposed both to sameness and 
to mere variety, to uniformity as well as to chaos. 

To secure unity as the climax of assimilation requires thorough 
study and meditation over a poem, a story, a play, until the one 
situation, motive, or spirit shall fully dominate the reader. 

The illustrations of unity are innumerable, and the same is true 
of exercises for its development. One important practice is for 
students to study some long poem, story, or play, and make an 
abridgment which shall embody its spirit, and render this abridg- 
ment with a unity of its own, but in harmony with the spirit of 
the whole work. 

Transitions and variations must be studied as necessary steps 
to unity. Mechanical or mere volitional changes, however, are 
antagonistic to unity. 

In a dramatic story or scene, unity of impression is often se- 
cured by the opposition of the first to the last. In the first part 
of such a scene, an emotion must often be accentuated for the sake 
of opposition and unity, or in order to give force to the effect of 



358 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

certain revelations. For example, Hamlet is very familiar with 
Rosencranz and G-uildenstern when he first receives them. This 
emphasizes the reserve toward them when his suspicion is aroused. 
So in the scene of the play, he seems gay and careless at first, to 
accent the great passion at the disclosure of the king's guilt. 
Again, in the " Lady of Lyons, " when Pauline enters the cot- 
tage, she must be full of the greatest joy ; her love and her hap- 
piness must all be centred in Claude. Otherwise, the effect of 
the revelation cannot be shown. The rise of a wave of passion 
must be in proportion to its fall. There is danger of anticipating 
what is coming. Unity in dramatic movement can only be se- 
cured by vivid accentuation of each situation in opposition. Each 
specific event must be realized with its own spirit to bring it into 
unity with other events. All feeling is dependent upon imagina- 
tive contemplation. This must form a part of the preparation 
for all vocal rendering of noble literature. Such a feeling of the 
" spirit of the piece " should be awakened as to envelop all in one 
atmosphere, as well as to cause each idea to be definitely varied in 
relation to one dominant principle. The significance of the death 
of Lincoln, the feeling that awakes in the nation, must all be 
realized before any one can appreciate or conceive the poetic vis- 
ion, or express the feeling in this intense outburst of passion. 

O CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN ! 

Captain, my Captain ! our fearful trip is done ; 
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won ; 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 
But, heart, heart, heart ! the bleeding drops of red, 
Where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead. 

Captain, my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills, 

For you bouquets and ribbon' d wreaths — for you the shores a-crowding ; 

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning ; 

Here, Captain, dear father ! this arm beneath your head ! 

It is some dream that on the deck, you 've fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ; 
My Captain does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ; 



, UNITY. 359 

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage is closed and done ; 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won ; 
Exult, shores, and ring, bells ! but I with mournful tread 
Walk the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead. 
" On Lincoln." Walt Whitman. 

How each of the farewells of the two greatest English poets of 
the century are permeated with one poetic situation, feeling, and 
principle in harmony with the poet's life and work ! 

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO. 

At the midnight, in the silence of the sleep-time, 

When you sejwur fancies free, 
Will they pass to^here — by death, fools think, imprisoned — 
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, 
Pity me ? 

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken ! 

What had I on earth to do 
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly ? 
Like* the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel, 
Being who ? 

t One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, 

Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake. 

No, at noonday, in the battle of man's work-time, 

Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 

Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 

" Strive and thrive ! " cry, <f Speed, — fight on, fare ever 

There as here ! " 

Browning. 

CROSSING THE BAR. 

Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me ! 
And may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea, 
But such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam, 
When that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home. 

Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark ! 

And may there be no sadness of farewell, when I embark ; 

For tho' from out our bourne of time and place the flood may bear me EJr, 

I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crost the bar. 

Tennyson. 



360 ASSIMILATION, OR DRAMATIC RELATIONS. 

This may be carried too far, as, even in these short poems, 
each idea changes the feeling. Reading all in one spirit does not 
mean a monotonous drift. Speakers often fail to make a point 
impressive from a misconception of unity. All is colored with 
one emotion; the great central emotion is anticipated, and there 
is no variation or movement of passion. The highest unity can be 
obtained only by sequence and opposition. Each idea must have 
its own character, and then it can be brought into true unity with 
others. 

Unity is not only the highest quality of art and the climax of 
artistic endeavor, it is also a test of nghfcuethods of procedure in 
art work, especially in vocal expression. vVhere the method aims 
to regulate the modulations of the voice by rules, then inconsis- 
tencies and lack of organic coherence begin to take the place of 
that sense of life which lies at the heart of every true produ# of 
art. But where vocal expression is studied as a manifestation 
of the processes of thinking; where the teacher is able to see and 
to show a student, not only the chief fault in the action of the 
body and the voice, but its ultimate cause in the action of th^ 
mind ; and where he is able to awaken genuine thinking and assim- 
ilation, to inspire imaginative action and dramatic instinct, — then 
one of the first results to follow is the truer energy of the student's 
faculties and powers, and the higher and more natural unity of the 
complex elements of his expression. 

Words, as a form of expression, are symbolic or conventional 
representatives of ideas; but while speaking words, the voice is 
modulated, consciously or unconsciously, and reveals that which 
words cannot express. The changes of pitch, inflections, and tex- 
tures manifest the process of thinking, the speaker's aims, feelings, 
convictions, and degree of interest, and his many attitudes towards 
ideas or his hearers. To reveal these elliptic and emotional rela- 
tions is the function of vocal expression. Thus it is subjective, 
complex, and spontaneous, and hence less subject to rule and 
conscious regulation than any other artistic action of the human 
being. It reveals the deepest processes of thinking, the degrees 
and modes of assimilating and realizing truth, and hence more 



UNITY. 361 

definitely than any other art, it shows the sincerity and genuine- 
ness of the man, his real character, his real interest, when rightly 
used; but when it is taught in an objective way, as an art, in 
obedience to rules, when it is taught as Grammar is taught, and an 
endeavor made to acquire modulations of the voice as words are 
acquired, and to make all modulations conform to rules, then 
vocal expression may, in a sense, become a foreign language, and 
its use a means of developing unnaturalness and affectation. 

As voeal expression is the nearest to Nature of any artistic act, 
those qualities which are universally present in all Nature's pro- 
cesses, such as simplicity, ease, freedom, directness, repose, power, 
animation, and unity, are always found predominant. These quali- 
ties are the revelation of life, and must be developed by stimulat- 
ing the life of the man, by awakening his powers to natural and 
intense activity, ^id by securing a sense of the passing of their 
activity into form (jr relation with otiier minds. If the thinking 
is genuine, if the assimilation is real, if the successive ideas and 
the feeling dominate the man at the instant he speaks, then ex- 
pression is not a mere reproduction of memorized signs, a fossilized 
relic of what has been in the past, but the spontaneous life of the 
man bringing all the most delicate elements of expression into 
harmonious relationship to each other, to the speaker and to other 
minds. Voice and body are brought into unity, and even the 
elemental powers of being, — thinking, feeling, and choosing ; 
then vocal modulations become living and true, and expression 
a revelation of the thought and experience of the man. 



INDEX. 



Subjects of lessons are printed in CAPITALS ; authors from whom selections are taken in 
Small Capitals ; titles of pieces, in Italics; and topics, in Roman. 



Abraham, and the Angel, 218. 

Abt Vogler, 188. 

Acting, assimilation in, illustrated, 235; 
must reveal point of a play, 239 ; neces- 
sary in dramatic literature, 238 ; needs 
participation, 266. 

Action, not gesticulation, 239; relation to 
Vocal Expression, 238. 

Actor contrasted with orator, 322-323. 

Adam and Orlando, 281. 

Agitation, from "Wendell Phillips, 134. 

Aldeich, T. B., Identity, 154; lines from 
Mabel, 205. 

Allingham, William, Stanza from Mary 
Donnelly, 212. 

Amateur acting, danger in, 318. 

Among the Hocks, Browning, 63. 

Analysis destroys poetry, 25. 

Anderson, Alexander, Cuddle Boon, 275. 

Angels of Buena Vista, lines from, 266. 

Apparitions, Browning, 28. 

Aristotle, definition of art, 221 ; of poetry, 
24. 

Arnold, Matthew, Dover Beach, lines 
from, 227 ; The Hunt, from Church of 
Brou, 309; To Marguerite, 100;. from 
Obermann, 36, 211; from Self-Depen- 
dence, 163. 

Art and Sorrow, from In Memoriam, 138. 

Art and science, 127 ; development of, 156 ; 
furnishes material to imagination, 155 ; 
must suggest inward life, 351-353; rela- 
tion, 30 ; subtle, 297. 

ASSIMILATION, DEVELOPMENT OF, 
312-315 ; and Dialect, 273-75 ; and 
Humor, 328 ; and Languages, 333 ; con- 
trasted with imitation, 221 ; dominates 
in highest dramatic art, 288 ; from within, 
223 ; in Study of literature, 313 ; modes 
of, 228 ; necessary to truthful expression, 
191-192; Quotation, 268-271. 

Attention, active and passive, 29-31. 

ATTITUDE OF THE MAN, 250-256. 

Aunt Tabitha, Holmes, lines from, 268. 

Background, created by imagination, 82-87. 
Bain, description in Byron and Coleridge, 
310. 



Barbara Frietchie, Whittier, 232. 

Bassanio and Shylock, Shakespeare, 236. 

Beautiful, contrasted with the sublime, 127. 

Beethoven on melody in poetry, 335. 

Ben Karshook's Wisdom, 271. 

Bible, Readings from the. Abraham, 218 ; 
Elijah at Carmel, 256 ; Elijah's flight 
and vision, 264 ; Great Deliverance, The, 
146 ; Job, from Book of, 130 ; Parable 
of the Father, 247 ; Psalm XVIII, from, 
166 ; Psalm LV., 85 ; Psalm LXXXIV, 
122 ; Transitions, 256 ; Two Ways, 308. 

Blake, William, The Piper, 203. 

Booth, suggestive, 232. 

Bourdillon, Francis William, A Violinist, 
187 ; Night a Thousand Eyes, 165. 

Branch, Mary Bolles, A Petrified Fern, 
46. 

Brooks, Rev. Phillips, from Withheld Com- 
pletions of Life, 134. 

Brookside, The, Lord Houghton, 122. 

Browning, Robert, Abt Vogler, 188 ; Among 
the Bocks, 63 ; Ben Kar shook' 's Wisdom, 
271 ; Confessions, 242 ; Incident of the 
French Camp, 296 ; Memorabilia, 318 ; 
One Way of Love, 303; Tale, A, 295. 

Brun, Frederike, Chamouni at Sunrise, 
222. 

Bryant, William Cullen, from Thanatop- 
sis, 175 ; from Bobolink, 210. 

Building of the Ship, Longfellow, lines 
from, 199. 

Burlesque, peculiarities of, 286. 

Burns, Robert, Spouse Nancy, 269. 

Byron, Lord, Pome, 39; from Waterloo, 
89 ; Thunderstorm, 310. 

Calverly, Gemini and Virgo, 332. 

Campbell, lines from Poland, 205. 

Captain and Treasurer, Longfellow, 320. 

Carpenter, Passage from, 166. 

Cart, Alice, lines from, 163. 

Carlyle, Paragraphs from Mystery, 124 ; 

Face of Dante, 143 ; 170 ; 187. 
Cassius instigating Brutus, 96. 
Cavalier's Escape, Thornberry, 229. 
Chambered Nautilus, Holmes, 45. 
Chamouni at Sunrise, Brim, 222. 



364 



INDEX. 



CHANGES IN FEELING, 203-207. 
Change of pitch, characteristic of natural- 
ness, 175; dramatic, 299; important in 
feeling, 176 ; reveals imagination, 176 ; 
reveals mental action, 175. 

Character, Etymology of the word, 193 ; in 
Vocal Expression, 194 ; in successive 
clauses illustrated, 206 ; kept in mono- 
logue, 293. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE IMAGI- 
NATION, 74-79. 

Cheney, Kitchen Clock, 227. 

Child, dramatic, 315. 

Christabel, Coleridge, lines from, 94. 

Christmas Hymn, Domett, 163. 

Churchyard Stile, Cook, 303. 

Cicely and Bears, lines from, 289. 

Coleridge, Samuel Tayloe, Christabel, 
lines from, 131 ; Genevieve, 174 ; Kubla 
Khan, 49 ; Mont Blanc before Sunrise, 40 ; 
Youth and Age, 187. 

Collins, William, Coleridge on Spon- 
taneity, 352 ; from Thompson's Grave, 110. 

Collins, Mortimer, from Ivory Gate, 130. 

Comedy, compared with tragedy, 284. 

CONCEPTION AND IMAGINATION, 23- 
27. 

Concord Hymn, Emerson, 42. 

Confessions, Browning, 242. 

Contemplation, necessity of, 31. 

CONTRAST, 209-213. 

Contrasts in movement, 310-311. 

Constance, Immolation of, Scott, 289. 

Comedy, nature and rendering, 284, 285 ; 
ideal, 287. 

Cook, Eliza, Churchyard Stile, 302. 

Coquelin, use of monologues, 329. 

Craik, Mrs., Now and Afterwards, 215. 

Cuckoo, Logan, 33. 

Cuddle Boon, Anderson, 275. 

Cushman, Charlotte, her reading, 326-327, 
328. 

Dangers in Dramatic Expression, 342. 

Banny Beever, Kipling, 343. 

Darwin, On literature, 13-14. 

Baybreak, Longfellow, 303. 

Bay Bream, Tennyson, lines from, 132. 

Beath of Marmion, Scott, 254. 

Befence of Poetry, from Shelley, 147. 

Degrees of Imagination, 126-128. 

Dekker, The Happy Heart, 219. 

Delivery, depends on realizing truth, 19, 20 ; 
developed by dialogues, 314 ; and dia- 
logues, 314; dramatic, 322-324; effective 
purpose in, 278; natural, 19; neutrality 
and monotony of, 194 ; not pronunciation, 
18, 19 ; reveals the man, 191. 

Delsarte, on three purposes, 277. 



Demosthenes, sentence from, 141. 

De Qutncy, Thomas, Literature of knowl- 
edge and of power, 157. 

Bestruction of the Carnatic, Burke, 140. 

Development op Assimilation, 312-315; 
of Dramatic Instinct, 237-240 ; of Im- 
agination, 154-157. 

Dialect, chiefly melody and rhythm, 273-4 ; 
not in pronunciation, 273 ; from assimi- 
lation, not imitation, 274. 

DIALOGUES, THE EDUCATIONAL 
VALUE OF, 315-319 ; dangers in, 318 ; 
develop control, 316 ; needed by speak- 
ers, 316 ; used in studying literature, 317. 

Dickens, from Nicholas Nickleby, 204. 

Dignity, shown by movement, 308. 

Dobson, Austin, Four Seasons, 128 ; The 
Ladies of St. James, 259. 

Bomestic Asides, Hood, 252. 

Domett, Alfred, Christmas Hymn, 163. 

Bover Beach, Arnold, lines from, 227. 

Dramatic, and lyric akin, 269 ; antagonistic 
to show, 341 ; deals with motives, 283 ; 
etymology of, 234; Forms of the, 283- 
289, also 293 ; studies important for 
clergymen, 315. Safeguard in developing, 
318. 

DRAMATIC INSTINCT, ELEMENTS OF, 
234-240 ; broader than acting, 323 ; define 
and explain, 234-235 ; developed best 
apart from stage, 240 ; forms illustrated, 
283 ; not imitative, 224 ; Instinct most 
important, 323 ; neglected in education, 
9 ; poetry, peculiarities of, 119-120 ; 
simple, 342, 346 ; as related to suffering, 
283 ; representation suggestive, 269 ; re- 
quires acting, 238 ; requisites, 342 ; ex- 
planatory clauses, 255. 

Dramatic Expression, Faults and Dan- 
gers in, 342-344. 

Dramatic Participation, illustrated, 253. 

Drifting in emotion — untruthful, 345. 

Earnestness, nature of, 323. 

Elder Brother, The, 195. 

Eliot, George, lines from, 28. 

Elliott, Ebenezer, Plaint, bines from, 180. 

Elijah at Carmel, 256. 

Elijah's Flight, and Vision, 264. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, The Concord 
Hymn, 42 ; lines from, 172, 173. 

Emotion, different in imaginative stimulus, 
168 ; expressed ideally, 180 ; flows, 203 ; 
results more from imagination than 
objects, 93. 

Epic and ballad, 314 ; nature of, 119 ; dig- 
nity in rendering, 119. 

Erl King, The, Goethe, 336-337. 

Eve of St. Agnes, Stanza from, Keats, 67. 



INDEX. 



365 



Exegesis, dramatic, 246. 

Experience, gives character, 206. 

Expression, aim of, 225 ; denned by Goethe, 
93 ; means of, seem inadequate, 297 ; 
must show the whole man, 191, 194 ; 
shows action of faculties not their prod- 
uct, 185 ; nature of, 191 ; struggle for, 
127 ; of the sublime, 127. 

Face of Dante, Carlyle, 143. 

Faith and the Shell, "Wordsworth, 140. 

Fall of D'Assas, Mrs. Hemans, 263. 

Fancy, playful, 53 ; relation to imagina- 
tion, 52-62. 

Farce, nature and rendering of, 285-286 ; 
uses imitation, 231 ; use of, in Shakespeare, 
287. 

Faults and Dangers in Dramatic Expres- 
sion, 340-342. 

Faults, correction of, 169 ; monotony, 204, 
194 ; of Voice, cause of, 167 ; Tediousness, 
307 ; Hurry, 307. 

Feeling awakened by memory and imagina- 
tion, 90 ; requires clear ideas, 152. 

Ferdinand and Miranda, Shakespeare, 318. 

Field, Eugene, Night and Morning, 64; 
Little Boy Blue, 176. 

Fielding, Henry, Peter Pounce and the 
Parson, 240. 

Finch, Francis M., Figures, illustrations of, 
109-116 ; product of Imagination, 107-108 ; 
Nathan Hale, 218. 

Flower in a Crannied Wall, Tennyson, 216. 

Folk Lore, product of Imagination, 132. 

Forms of the Dramatic, 283-289. 

Four Seasons, Song of, Dobson, 128. 

Gemini and Virgo, Calverly, 332. 
Generalization and Imagination, 65. 
Genevieve, Coleridge, 174. 
Geraint, Tennyson, lines from, 80. 
Goethe, Erlkonig, 336 ; Wanderer's Night 

Song, 358. 
Goody Blake and Harry Gill, lines from, 

243. 
Gosse, Edward William, The Return of the 

Swallows, 128. 
GRADATION, 216-218. 
Gratiano's Words, Shakespeare, 104. 
Gray, Thomas, Elegy, lines from, 75. 
Great Deliverance, The, Psalm XLVL, 146. 
Greeks, custom of reciting, 326-327. 
Guitar, To a Lady with, Shelley, 69. 

Hamerton, Phillip Gilbert, Rising of the 

Hills, 46. 
Heart, A Happy, Dekker, 219. 
Hardy, Thomas, from " Tess," 68. 
Hebrew Poetry, Transitions in, 217. 



Heine, Palm and Pine, 23 ; in German, 338. 
Hemans, Felicia D., Fall of D'Assas, 263. 
Henry V., to his Troops, Shakespeare, 324. 
High Tide, Ingelow, lines from, 310. 
HISTRIONIC EXPRESSION, MODES OF, 

326-328. 
Hohenlinden, lines from, Campbell, 344. 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, The Chambered 

Nautilus, 45 ; lines from Aunt Tabitha, 2C8. 
Homer, lines from, 109 ; 123. 
Hood, Thomas ; Domestic Asides, 252, 

Pain in a Pleasure Boat, 215 ; lines from 

Seasons, 76 ; lines from Lost Heir, 205. 
Horatius, Macaulay, lines from, 307. 
Horne, Richard H, The Laurel Seed, 195. 
Houghton, Lord, The Brookside, 122. 
House of the Trees, Wetherald, 28. 
House Beautiful, Stevenson, 26. 
Hudson, Henry W., on spontaneity, 351, 

354. 
Hugo, Victor, On a Cannon, 129. The 

Tomb and the Rose, 268 ; in French 338. 
HUMOR AND ASSIMILATION, 328-329. 
Humor, and sympathy, 329 ; how to render, 

328 ; importance of, 329. 
Hunt, The, Arnold, 309. 

IDEAL AND THE REAL, THE, 47-49. 

Ideal, defined by Blanc, 67 ; by Plato, 67. 

IDEAS AND EXPERIENCE, 191-195. 

Ideas of Imitation, Ruskin, 225. 

IDENTIFICATION, 199-201. 

Identity, Aldrich, 154. 

Imagination, actions of, 164-171 ; acts easily, 
76 ; freely, 76 ; immediately, 75 ; simply, 
75 ; suggestively, 76 ; and Assimilation, 
340 ; and Fancy, 52-62 ; and Feeling, 89- 
100 ; and Figurative Language, 107-109 ; 
and Memory, 36-43, 340; and Science, 
42-44; concerned with realization of 
truth, 20 ; defined, 92 ; developed by art 
and literature, 11-12 ; different with 
each author, 137 ; Function of, 131-133 ; 
gives beauty, 27 ; highest action of the 
Soul, 185 ; kept from abuse by great 
art, 146 ; not decorative, 142 ; deceptive, 
142 ; goes to the heart, 145 ; not compo- 
sition, 145 ; relates, 30 ; requires intuitive 
knowledge, 152; should be developed, 
8-9. 

IMAGINATIVE ATTENTION, 29-32. 

IMITATION, AND ASSIMILATION, 220- 
225 ; not applicable to highest literature, 
223 ; distinguished from assimilation, 224 ; 
antagonistic to imagination, 224 ; manipu- 
lates, 262. 

Impersonation, as a form of expression, 327. 

Incident of the French Camp, Browning, 
296. 



366 



INDEX. 



Inflections reveal intellectual transitions, 

298. 
Influence, chief element in purposes, 277. 
Ingelow, Jean, lines from High Tide, 310. 
Ingomar, lines from, Knowles, 341. 
Instinct, nature of, 235 ; development of, 

237 ; dramatic, 342. 
INTENSITY, AND REPOSE, 177-181; 

needs imagination, 177 ; control, 178. 
In the Storin, Augusta Webster, 148. 
Intimations of Immortality, Wordsworth, 

112. 
Itylus, Swinburne, 142. 
Ivry, Macaulay, lines from, 311. 
Ivory Gate, Collins, lines from, 130. 

Jacques, lines on, Shakespeare, 271. 
Jebb, Burke and Demosthenes, 140. 
Jefferson, Joseph, uses Assimilation, 341 ; 

on actors and orators, 322. 
Job, lines from the Book of, 130. 
Jonson, Ben, lines from, 227. 
Journey of Faith and Love, 55. 

Keats, John, Stanza from Eve of St. Agnes, 

67 ; Stanza from The Nightingale, 77 ; 72 ; 

109. 
Keble, lines from Flowers, 130. 
Keenan's Charge, 208. 
Khemnitzer, from The Rich Man and the 

Poor Man, 2G7. 
Kingsley, Charles, The Three Fishers, 200 ; 

A Myth, 111. 
Kipling, Rudyard, Danny Deever, 342. 
Kitchen Clock, lines from, Cheney, 227. 
KNOWLEDGE AND EXPRESSION, 149- 

154. 
Kubla Khan, Coleridge, 49. 

Ladies of St. James, The, Dobson, 259. 
Lady Macbeth, Last Appearance of, 124. 
Lady of the Lake, lines from, Scott, 220. 
L , Allegro, lines from, Milton, 136. 
Lamb, Charles, Origin of Roast Pig, 329. 
LANGUAGES, ASSIMILATION AND, 333- 

340. 
Lanier, Sydney, Translation from Heine, 

23. 
Laurel Seed, The, Home, 195. 
Legend of Bregenz, Procter, lines from, 82, 

311. 
L'Esperance, 66. 

Leibnitz, from Essay on Knowledge, 150. 
Lewes, George Henry, on Translation, 335. 
Life, Adaptation by Du Maurier, 336. 
Light of Other Days, Moore, 174. 
Literature of Knowledge and of Power, 157. 
Literature, methods of studying, 13-18, 149 ; 

means of developing imagination, 155 ; 



not Philology, 15 ; study of, should 
centre in assimilation, 313. 

Little Boy Blue, Eield, 176. 

Lochinvar, Scott, 207. 

Logan, John, The Cuckoo, 33. 

Logic and Imagination, 66. 

Longfellow, Henry W., lines from The 
Building of the Ship, 199 ; Captain and 
Treasurer, 320 ; Daybreak, 303 ; from 
King Robert of Sicily, 192, 262; Paul 
Revere's Ride, 201 ; Wreck of the Hes- 
perus, 272. 

Lost Church, Uhland, 72. 

Lovers and Music, Shakespeare, 33. 

Lowell, James Russell, lines from, 29, 170. 

Lucy, Wordsworth, 110. 

Lyrics, how interest is held, 117 ; should be 
studied by children, 313 ; simplest imagi- 
native expression, 118 ; subjective and 
personal, 117 ; sublime, 118. 

Maid of Isla, Scott, 302. 

Macaulay, Thomas B., from Horatius, 307. 

McCarty, Dennis F., Waiting for the May, 
121. 

Macdonald, George, Song, 186. 

MANIFESTATION AND REPRESENTA- 
TION, 228-232. 

MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: 
CHANGE OF PITCH, 175; PAUSE, 
165-166; TONE-COLOR, 167; TOUCH, 
161-163. 

Marguerite, Matthew Arnold, 100. 

Maupassant, Guy de, Extract from, 105. 

Marzials, Theophtle J. H., The Star, 64. 

Massey, Gerald, lines from, 173. 

Melody, peculiar form in every, 324. 

Memorabilia, Browning, 318. 

Memory as related to Imagination, 26-38. 

Mental action cause of expression, 183-185. 

Metre, not rhythm, 305. 

Mill, John Stuart, on study of languages, 
333. 

Mllton, John, lines criticised by Ruskin, 
61 ; from H Penseroso, 74 ; Satan, 117 ; 
from L' 'Allegro, 136 ; on Shakespeare, 
143. 

Milton, Wordsworth, and Shelley con- 
trasted, 136. 

Misconceptions, Browning, 79. 

MISCONCEPTIONS AND ABUSES OF 
IMAGINATION, 144-147. 

Modulations, vocal, contrasted with words, 
185. 

MONOLOGUES, 293-295. 

Monologues, not same as Impersonation, 
327. 

Moore, Thomas, The Light of Other Days, 
174. 



INDEX. 



367 



Monotony, cause of, 194 ; death of feeling, 
194 ; of purpose, chief fault of speakers, 
278. 

Monroe, on three great words in expression, 
182. 

MOVEMENT, 304-311 ; contrasts of, 309 ; 
defined, 306 ; in art, 306 ; each passion a 
peculiar, 308 ; in relation to imagination, 
176 ; not time, 306. 

Mont Blanc, Coleridge, 40. 

Murder of Duncan, Shakespeare, 104. 

Murder of Mr. White, passage from, "Web- 
ster, 325. 

Music, Shelley, 23. 

My Rest, Sylva, 37. 

Nathan Hale, Finch, 218. 
Neutrality, cause of faults, 194-195. 
Nicholas Nickleby, passage from, Dickens, 

204. 
Newman, John Henry, Faith, 134. 
Night and Morning, Field, 64. 
Now and Afterwards, Craik, 215. 

Obermann, lines from Arnold's, 36 ; 211. 

Observation and Imagination, 38. 

Old Grenadier's Story, The, Thornberry, 

181. 
One Way of Love, Browning, 303. 
Orations, should be studied, 314 ; danger of, 

314. 
Oratory, distinguished from monologue, 

294; importance of purposes in, 276- 

278 ; requires imagination, 132-133 ; must 

be impressionable, compared to acting, 

322. 
Origin of Roast Pig, The, Lamb, 329. 
ORIGINALITY, 350-353; importance of, 

224. 
Othello, lines from, Shakespeare, 101. 

Pain in a Pleasure Boat, Hood, 215. 

Palm and Pine, Heine, 23, 339. 

Paracelsus, lines from, Browning, 165. 

Participation, and Dramatic Expression, 
261 ; and Quotation, 270 ; contrasted with 
personation, 260 ; dramatic, important, 
261. 

PASSION, EFFECT UPON IMAGINA- 
TION, 101-103 ; controlled by ideas, 203 ; 
rhythmic, 346 ; stimulates imagination, 
101-102. 

Pathos, relation to Humor, 329. 

Pauline, picture from Browning, 111. 

Paul Revere's Ride, Longfellow, 201. 

Pause, dignified, 166 ; necessary to imagina- 
tion, 165 ; reveals imaginative and emo- 
tional relations, 298. 



Pericles, Paragraph from Funeral Oration, 
135. 

PERSONATION AND PARTICIPATION, 
260-266. 

Personation, at times ignobly, 264 ; by 
representation, not imitation, 231-232 ; 
must be justified by participation, 261 ; 
not mechanical, 261. 

Plato, on poetry, 135. 

Play, importance of, proved by Froebel, 
316. 

Pippa Passes, lines from, Browning, 163. 

Piper, The, Blake, 203. 

Phidias, Realist or Idealist ? 47. 

Petrified Fern, Branch, 46. 

Poesy, George Wither, 51. 

Poetry, contrasted with sublimity, 127 
destroyed by analysis, 25 ; dramatic, 119 
forms of, 117-120 ; gives point of view, 245 
imagination in, 120; implies utterance, 
334 ; lyric, imagination in, 120 ; must be 
vocally rendered, 121 ; must struggle to 
render, 121 ; nature of, 120 ; not defined 
by prose, 24 ; Plato on, 135. 

Poet's Epitaph, hues from, Wordsworth, 
160. 

POINT OF VIEW, 243-247 ; variation pos- 
sible, 244. 

Pope, lines from, 220, 226. 

Portia's Speech on Mercy, Shakespeare, 280. 

Pounce and the Parson, Fielding, 240. 

Pride of Youth, Scott, 350. 

Procter, Adelaide A., lines from Legend 
of Bregenz, 82, 311. 

Prodigal Son, Parable of, 247. 

Psalm LXXXIV., VII ; XL VI., 146 ; from 
XVIII. , 166 ; from LV., 85; lines from 
CIV., 84. 

Psalms, Greatest Lyrics, 118. 

Public Reading, present condition of, 328. 

PURPOSES IN EXPRESSION, 276-282; 
conscious and unconscious, 276-277 ; de- 
veloped by contrast, 279 ; distinct from 
emotion, 278 ; short extracts and prob- 
lems for, 279-281 ; variety of, should be 
practised, 278. 

Queen Mab, Shakespeare, 62. 
Quotation and Assimilation, 268-271. 
Quotation, exaggerated by Public Readers, 
270. 

Read, T. B., Waggoner of the Alleghanies, 
175, 212. 

Realism and Imagination, 47-48. 

Recitation, among the Greeks, 16, 327; 
earliest form of Dramatic Expression, 
326 ; helpful to the study of languages, 



368 



INDEX. 



Rendering, requires intuitive knowledge, 

153 ; importance of, in literature, 317. 
Repose, nature of, 179 ; suggestive, 180. 
Representation, not imitation, 230, 231 ; 

right method in, 232 ; universally desired, 

2G8. 
Resonance, distinguished from pitch, 169. 
Return of the Swallows, Gosse, 128. 
Revenge, The, Tennyson, 346. 
Rhythm, defined, 304; in nature, 304; in 

speech free, 305 ; manifests force, 304 ; 

manifests passion, 204 ; not metre, 305. 
Rich Man and Poor Man, lines from, 

Khemnitzer, 267. 
Rising of the Hills, Hamerton, 46. 
River mouth Rocks, lines from, Whittier, 248. 
Robert of Sicily, lines from, Longfellow, 

192 ; 262. 
Rome, Byron's lines on, 39. 
Romeo and Juliet, lines from, Shakespeare, 

102. 
Ruskin, on Imagination and Fancy, 60-61 ; 

ideas of imitation, 225 ; penetrative power 

of imagination, 78-79. 

Salvini, used assimilation, 232. 

Schlegel, on unity and originality, 353. 

Science furnishes material to imagination, 
43; 44. 

Scott, Sir Walter, Constance, 289 ; Death- 
of Marmion, 254 ; Lady of the Lake, from, 
220 ; Lochinvar, 207 ; Maid of Isla, 302 ; 
Pride of Youth, 349. 

Scripture Reading, danger of exaggeration 
in transition, 342 ; dramatic, 342, 343 ; dra- 
matic participation rather than persona- 
tion, 264 ; must realize situation, 86 ; 
necessity of transitions in movement, 308 ; 
needs point of view, 256 ; needs dramatic 
exegesis, 246. 

Self -Dependence, lines from, Arnold, 163. 

Sermon on the Mount, Cliniax of, 308. 

Shairp, On Imagination, 24 ; 25 ; 92. 

Shakespeare, "William. Adam and Or- 
lando, 281 ; Bassanio and Shylock, 236 ; 
Blow, Blow, 174; on Ccesar, 91 ; Cassius in- 
stigating Brutus, 96 ; G>-atiano and Anxi- 
ety, 104; Falstaff on Cowardice, 291 j 
Hark ! Hark, 26 ; Henry V. to his Troops, 
324 ; Hamlet, lines from, 250 ; Hotspur's 
Defence, 233 ; Imogen's Breathing, 110 ; 
on Jacques, 271 ; Kent's Farewell, 281 ; 
Lovers and Music, 33 ; Mercy, 280 ; 
Murder of Duncan, 104 ; from Othello, 
101 ; from Richard III., 250 ; from 
Romeo, 102 ; from Tempest, 103 ; Shylock 
and Tubal, 95 ; Sonnets, Morning, 28 ; 
Sessions of Thought, 63 ; on Weari- 



Shakespeare's Use of Imagination, 68, 93. 

Shamus O'Brien, from, 274. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, from Cloud, 53 ; 
Defence of Poetry, 147; To Lady with 
Guitar, 69 ; Journey of Faith and Love, 
55 ; World's Wanderers, 137 ; from Mont 
Blanc, 184 ; from Prometheus, Lyric, 32 ; 
Dawn, 54 ; Fancy and imagination in, 
53, 54. 

Sheridan, Richard B., lines from School for 
Scandal, 205. 

Shylock and Tubal, 95. 

Shylock, modes of rendering, 235. 

SITUATION AND BACKGROUND, 81-87. 

Simonides, Inscription at Thermopylae, 129. 

Simplicity of Imagination, 155 ; of Expres- 
sion, 161 ; of Great authors, 342. 

Skylark, To a, Wordsworth, 219. 

Soliloquies, distinguished from monologue, 
293. 

Song, Tennyson, Thy Voice is Heard, 81. 

Songs, George Macdonald, 1S6 ; Scott, 210 ; 
Tennyson, 81 ; " Blow, Blow," 174 ; 
Hark ! Hark, 26. 

Sorrow, distinguished from sadness, 178 ; 
3-±6. 

SPEAKING AND ACTING, 322-326. 

Speakers, and acting, 322-326 ; how atten- 
tion is won, 322, 323; faults of, 323; 
emotional truthfulness, 344. 

Spenser, lines from, 141. 

Spontaneity, 350-353. 

Spouse Nancy, Burns, lines from, 269. 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, The House 
Beautiful, 26. 

Storey, lines upon language, 230. 

Story chiefly shown by movement, 307. 

Stories develop assimilation, 313. 

SUGGESTION, 182-186. 

Swift, lines from Verses on his own Death, 
250, 251. 

Swinburne, Algernon, Itylus, 142. 

Sympathy, soul of expression, 199. 

Tale, A, Browning, 295. 

Taylor, Sir Henry, lines from, 174. 

Taylor, Tom, 'Twixt Axe and Crown, 290. 

Taylor Bayard, from Song of the Camp, 
65. 

Tediousness and Hurry, faults of move- 
ment, 307. 

Tennyson, Alfred, Art and Sorrow, from 
In Memoriam, 138; Crossing the Bar, 
360 ; Departure, The, 132 ; Flower, 216 ; 
Roll on, 44 ; Sunset, 44 ; Thy Voice is 
Heard, 81 ; The Revenge, 346 ; The Voice 
and the Peak, 186; We parted, 103; 
When f 271; from In Memoriam, 44, 133 ; 
lines from Geraint, 80. 



INDEX. 



369 



Tennyson's use of Scientific facts, 44 ; and 
Wordsworth compared, 138. 

Thornbury, George Walter, The Cava- 
lier's Escape, 229 ; The Old Grenadier's 
Story, 181. 

Three Fishers, The, Kingsley, 200. 

Time, measured by rhythm, 306. 

Tomb and the Rose, Victor Hugo, 268, 339. 

Tone Color, defined, 167 ; dignified form of 
expression, 168 ; reveals emotion, 168 ; 
acquired by mechanical system, 168 ; 
and quality, 167 ; selections for develop- 
ing, 170-175. 

Touch, means of revealing imagination, 161 ; 
danger of, 162. 

Training, necessity of, 314. 

Tragedy, nature and elements of, 283-284. 

Transitions, Means op Revealing, 297- 
300 ; dangers in, 345, 346 ; develop truth- 
fulness of feeling, 217 ; extracts showing 
modes of, 300-303; found in dignified 
literature, 217 ; in movement, important, 
307 ; in Scripture reading, 256 ; by con- 
trast and gradation, 209 ; simple, 342 ; 
subtle, 314 ; in Tone Color subtle, 299. 

Truth and Fact, 193, 243. 

TRUTHFULNESS, EMOTIONAL, 344-347. 

Truthfulness, demands assimilation, 312; 
destroyed by drifting, 345 ; developed by 
practising transitions, 217 ; needed by 
speakers, 344. 

' Twixt Axe and Crown, 290. 

Two Peaks, Wordsworth, 156. 

Uhland, The Lost Church, 72. 

UNITY, 353-367. 

Up at a Villa, Down in the City, Browning, 

213. 
USES OF IMAGINATION, 131-133. 

Velocity, law of, 306. 

Verses on his own death, Swift, lines from, 
250, 251. 

Violinist, A, Bourdillon, 187. 

Vocal Expression, aided by studying lan- 
guages, 335 ; by translating, 336 ; an in- 
terpretative art, 19 ; can suggest eternity, 
183 ; danger of, 297 ; depends upon the 
light, 95 ; mechanical and natural method, 



18-21 ; direct language of emotion, 350 ; 
necessity of point of view in, 246 ; needs 
" ideal presence," 200 ; not pronuncia- 
tion, 19 ; requisites of, 342 ; subtle, 297 ; 
temptation to mechanical, 298 ; uses 
many languages, 182. 

Voice and the Peak, Tennyson, 186. 

Voices, The, Isaiah XL., 87. 

Voice, cause of faults of, 167 ; how made 
cold, 191 ; manipulation of, 298 ; modula- 
tions of, delicate, 297. 

Watson, William, World Strangeness, 166. 

Watts, Theodore, On absolute dramatic vi- 
sion, 120. 

Webster, Augusta, In the Storm, 148. 

Webster, Daniel, Murder of Mr. White, 
325 ; paragraph from, 133. 

Webster, Daniel, used Imagination, 323; 
324-325. 

Westminster Bridge, Wordsworth, 49. 

Wetherald, Ethelwyn, The House of the 
Trees, 28. 

When f Tennyson, 271. 

Whittier, John G., from Angels of Buena 
Vista, 266 ; Barbara Frietchie, 232 ; from 
Rivermouth Rocks, 248 ; lines from Our 
Master, 108 ; from Maud Mutter, 111. 

Whitman, Walt, O Captain, My Captain ! 
~ 358. 

Wither, George, Laughing at Despair, 
172 ; from Poesy, 51. 

Woman's Last Word, Browning, 153. 

Words, place of, in expression, 192. 

Wordsworth, William, Beauty, 22 ; from 
Brougham Castle, 68 ; Daisy, from, 60 ; 
Goody Blake, from, 243; Intimations of 
Immortality, 112 ; Lucy, 110 ; Nightin- 
gale, from, 136 ; Poet's Epitaph, 64, 161 ; 
Shell, 140; Skylark, 249; The Sonnet, 
355 ; Tables Turned, from, 29 ; Two 
Peaks, 156 ; Westminster Bridge^ 49 ; 
Worldliness, 21. 

Wordsworth, distinction of Imagination and 
Fancy, 59 ; compared with Tennyson, 137. 

World Strangeness, Watson, 166. 

Wreck of the Hesperus, Longfellow, 272. 

Youth and A ge, Coleridge, 187. 



